Past Pride
by MissBates
Summary: It's been the same story ever since P&P was published 200 years ago: arrogant jerk meets self-confident girl, and said girl puts him in his place. Can he change enough to change her mind? Chapter 18 up, completed! Spoilers for Season 5 and Season 6.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

"She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men." [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 3]

_

* * *

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1989_

"Thank you! " Lisa Cuddy pushed her notes into a pile and, clutching them with both hands, fled from the lectern at the front of the auditorium. She paused near one of the exits and surveyed the auditorium, nervous, but not nervous enough to miss on this chance of judging her effect on her listeners. She knew she was a convincing speaker, she had researched the background for her project proposal carefully, and the project itself was challenging, but feasible. Still ...

From the back of the auditorium Professor Lennox, her biochemistry professor, nodded benignly, a good sign. A few rows in front of him John and Lucas, her closest friends in undergraduate school, were applauding vigorously and giving her the thumbs-up as she caught their eye. Heart-warming, to be sure, but they hardly counted as impartial observers, being blind to a fault with respect to the quality of her achievements. Her eyes roamed to the front rows where the medical students sat, and she noted with satisfaction that many were glancing at her with interest, some of them taking down notes on their pads.

Jutting out her lower jaw, she let out a sharp breath of relief that surged upwards, blowing a few strands of hair out of her glowing face. The introductory "ahems" and "errs" of the next speaker washed over her as she leaned backwards against the wall next to the exit, willing herself to relax and to resume the facade of cool and ease that normally shielded her.

_This is not a matter of primary importance_, she told herself sternly. _This is only about getting a graduate mentor to supervise your undergraduate project. It would be nice to get a good mentor, but you can submit a good project even if your mentor sucks, Lisa._

In a move hailed as "innovative" and "set to improve the quality of teaching" the teaching staff had announced that undergraduates intending to go to medical graduate school would have to do a final-year project on a medical topic of their choice which would be supervised by senior medical students. This would help undergraduates to reflect their career choice, "increase undergraduate-postgraduate interaction" and "maximise supervision quotas per student".

The benefits for the regular teaching staff were clear, Cuddy thought drily. Professor Lennox alone would have roughly ten students less to supervise. She had no idea what the senior medical students had been offered: some token monetary compensation, maybe? She made a mental note to check that out – it would do no harm to know whether the incentive offered to her mentor could be used to put him under pressure to deliver. As for the pre-meds, the advantages of one-to-one supervision might well outweigh the disadvantage of being mentored by inexperienced medical students. It all depended on attracting the right mentor, which was what this "slave market" of project proposal presentations was all about. She'd made a few discreet enquiries of her own and a few names had cropped up as desirable mentors: Samantha Jennings, who was rumoured to have been offered a fellowship at a renowned institution pending her graduation, or George Wicklow, very handsome and said to be very ambitious, or ...

A harsh voice intruded the river of subconscious that she'd been gently rafting down.

"Charlie, there's no way I'm mentoring one of these bog-standard projects!"

Cuddy opened her eyes and located the speaker, a tall, gangly student leaning against the wall on the other side of the exit. Unruly, slightly too long hair for her taste, straight nose, sensual mouth – she knew him by sight and by reputation. Greg House, third on her list of potential mentors, noted for his brilliance, but notorious for embarrassing lecturers with deep, probing questions that uncovered mercilessly every glitch and every mistake. He had been described to her variously as a lunatic, a male-chauvinist-racist-and-whatever-ist-pig and an absolute genius. She had observed him ogling curvaceous female students, shovelling unbelievable amounts of carbohydrates down his throat in the cafeteria, and thumbing through medical journals in the library in the dead of night. It was the latter observation that had put him on her list: he'd been oblivious to his surroundings, his long, slender fingers had turned the pages while a frown of concentration had creased his brow; and something in Cuddy had said, "Yes, he may be completely insane, but he's got IT!"

His companion, a cheery-looking individual with a more orderly haircut and pleasant, open features, responded, "Oh, come along, House. They aren't all bad. I thought there were some jolly good project proposals so far."

House snorted. "_You_ bagged the only decent one so far." He nodded towards where Cuddy's friends Lucas and John were sitting.

Charlie's face creased into a happy smile. "Oh yes, a brilliant proposal. I was lucky to get hold of that undergraduate, John West, before anyone else moved in. I'm told he's very bright."

So John had a mentor already. Cuddy was pleased for him – he was absolutely brilliant and his project proposal was ambitious. If John had a fault, it was that he was not assertive enough to safeguard his own interests, so if he had been roped in by a prospective mentor without any major effort of his own (or possibly of Cuddy's), then that was all the better.

"But there are lots of other good projects around," Charlie continued implacably. House rolled his eyes. "The one we listened to just a moment ago about mortality rates in patients with multiple conditions was wonderful too. Look, the girl who proposed it is standing over there. Go ask her whether you can mentor her. Or I'll go ask for you, if your highness can't be bothered to stoop so low!"

Cuddy quickly averted her eyes, but she could sense two pairs of eyes surveying her, one friendly, the other cool and aloof. There was, unfortunately, no stopping the blush that crept up her neck to suffuse her cheeks. She wished she could control blushing as well as she could control most other outward shows of emotion.

House deigned to answer his companion, "Oh, that one. Mediocre. That'll be an exercise in statistics, not a medical study. What does the girl think she's going to be, an accountant? Honestly, I'm not going to waste my time weeding through a pile of numbers in order to pamper to spoilt pre-meds or satisfy the preposterous course requirements of lay-about professors on tenure. I don't understand why you put up with this crap."

"But House, you've _got_ to mentor someone. It's a graduation requirement," Charlie practically wailed.

"Okay, then I'll mentor _her_." House pointed a lazy finger at a student at the other end of the room and propelled himself off the wall in her direction.

"Why her?" Charlie interjected as he trailed behind. "She hasn't even introduced her project yet. How do you know it's good?"

"I don't. In fact, I'd be surprised if it were. But I do know that she's got the biggest funnabagos around."

His glance as he passed Cuddy was detached; Charlie's, realising that she must have heard most of their conversation, was frankly apologetic. Cuddy schooled her features into what she hoped was a mask of impassivity and trained her eyes on the current speaker, feigning attentiveness until the two men were well across the room Then she left her post and slipped into the empty seat next to John's.

"Asshole," she muttered.

John blinked in mild surprise, but wisely forbore to enquire further.

* * *

They were leaving the auditorium chatting of this and that when John asked curiously, "Who's an asshole?"

"Sorry? Oh, sorry, I didn't mean you!" Cuddy apologised. She schooled her features into an expression of amused nonchalance. "I overheard a conversation about my presentation and it wasn't very flattering!"

She recapitulated the conversation between Charlie and House, emphasising Charlie's praise of John and omitting House's decision to mentor Miss Big-Boobs entirely, all the while keeping the tone of her voice light and amused. The advantage of hanging out with guys, she decided, was that they rarely challenged the image she presented to the general public. They usually took her words at face value, did not expect confidential glimpses into her (non-existent) love-and-sex life, and rarely, if ever, probed deeply enough to hit upon the lode of turmoil and emotion hidden under her smooth granite surface. Had they noticed her ambiguous state of mind, she would have been hard put upon to explain why House's rejection of her project rankled so much.

"Don't let it get you down," Lucas said bracingly. "You can do better than Greg House. He may be a bloody genius, but they say he's mad and completely disorganised. You'd never get along. Now me, I'll be lucky to get a mentor at all," he added disconsolately.

There was no denying the truth of this, as Lucas was a mediocre student at the best and his project proposal unimaginative despite all that John and Cuddy had done to make him brush it up. Nevertheless, John and Cuddy hastened to make all the comforting and encouraging noises that the situation warranted.

Later, John asked with an astuteness Cuddy hadn't credited him with, "So, had you been thinking of asking House to mentor you?"

"Oh no!" she hastened to deny. "Of course not! And after what I overheard today, I think I can safely promise never to have any dealings with him at all, medical or otherwise."

* * *

"Another time, Lizzy,'' said her mother, "I would not dance with him, if I were you.''  
"I believe, Ma'am, I may safely promise you never to dance with him.'' [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 5]


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: Sorry, folks. The first few chapters were written before Known Unknowns was aired, and I'm not changing them any more.

**Chapter 2**

"I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow." [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 6]

* * *

_**University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, one month later**_

Someone was flicking paper pellets at Lisa Cuddy. She stiffened slightly as one hit the back of her neck and willed herself not to look around at the perpetrator. There could only be one person in the endocrinology class who'd waste his time shooting pellets instead of taking notes, and she was determined to take no notice of him whatsoever. Cuddy glanced down instinctively at her own notes and noticed that the last bit didn't make sense. Bother! The barrage of pellets had distracted her sufficiently to make her miss some of the salient points of the lecture.

Irritated by her own lack of concentration she scanned the room for a familiar face so that she could ask to borrow their notes to copy later, but she drew a complete blank. She was the only undergraduate in the class, having wheedled her way in with a lot of charm and even more determination. As a result she knew absolutely no one here personally. Greg House didn't count – she'd never talked to him. Besides, he obviously didn't take notes or, if he did, he converted them into pellets straightaway.

Cuddy brought her attention back to the lecturer, a post-graduate standing in for an absentee professor, and tried to make sense of what he was saying. Until the present day, she'd had the impression that she was coping well with a class that was advanced by her standards, but at the moment she felt out of her depth. Was the fellow botching up the lecture or was she stupid and incompetent?

She caught a movement at the end of her row in the corner of her eye. House had left his seat in the back row and was moving down her row towards her. She'd put her bag on the seat beside her, a subconscious act of self-defense when she was amongst strangers, but the message was lost on him. Reaching out, he dumped the bag unceremoniously onto the ground and plonked himself onto the seat next to hers. It took all her will power to ignore him and stare straight ahead while she slowly counted till ten. Only then did she deign to turn her head and fix him with a chilling look, saying, "That bag was there for a reason."

Blue-gray eyes returned her stare with an expression of mock dismay. She felt a queer tingling up her spine and the word 'mesmerizing' floated inconsequentially through her mind. She gave herself a mental shake and added lamely, "You might have asked first."

"Why ask, if one mightn't like the answer?"

She broke eye contact first, returning her attention to the lecture and the business of taking notes. His presence might be enervating, but he needn't know that, so she scribbled, jotted and underlined as if her life depended on it.

She could sense him mustering her before he too turned his eyes to the front. His hands, however, were restless, fingering the contents of his pockets, playing with his buttons, and finally beating a tattoo on the desk. Another inconsequential thought popped into her mind, "a pianist's hands", and to chastise herself for the direction her thoughts were taking she turned to him with a show of impatience.

"What?" she asked.

"I've run out of paper," he said meekly, giving her a spaniel stare of devotion. She snorted, but tore a page from her pad and handed it to him.

"Thank you, teacher."

She ignored the jibe and returned to her notes, cursing herself for giving in to him so quickly.

Three minutes later she gave up all pretense of listening to the lecture. She had manfully ignored the sound of tearing paper, she had not so much as cast an eye at the process that had converted harmless strips of pulped wood into deadly missiles, and she had closed her ears to the mutterings that had accompanied that process, but his next words jerked her rudely into the here and now of Housianism.

"I'll bet you five dollars that I can flick this into her cleavage."

He had a pellet balanced on the palm of his left hand, and his right hand was poised to propel the pellet into the amply exposed cleavage of a female student sitting three rows in front of them.

"Don't!" she hissed sharply, slapping her hand down instinctively onto his palm to imprison the pellet. She regretted the contact immediately. A few heads in the row in front of them turned, causing her to flush with mortification. She removed her hand quickly, brushing the pellet from his palm onto the floor as she did so.

"Aw, teacher," he complained as he bent down to retrieve it. He froze in mid-movement, however, his gaze focusing suddenly and his face intent, then he straightened up slowly, the inane grin replaced by a set line of concentration. It took Cuddy a moment to realize that it was not she who had provoked this metamorphosis, but the hapless lecturer. Something he had just said had caught House's attention.

House's voice cut through the room. "All the symptoms you just listed could just as well have been caused by a viral infection or an auto-immune disease. You can't diagnose a hormonal imbalance on the basis of those symptoms."

_What symptom__s?_ Cuddy asked herself, scanning her notes. She had listed no symptoms, had obviously seen, heard and understood nothing of the lecture these past five minutes. House, on the other hand, had managed to fabricate and flick pellets, carry on a _sotto voce_ conversation with her and attend to the lecture, all at the same time. He was now reciting a list of diagnostic tests that could confirm or exclude potential causes of the disorder in question, while the lecturer sought refuge in his notes. Cuddy felt sorry for him – standing in for a professor at short notice was probably harrowing even without know-it-alls like House in the audience.

"Yes, well, maybe we can discuss this in detail tomorrow," the lecturer suggested with the air of a drowning man clutching at a straw.

"You've made a completely erroneous statement, and now you want to leave it hanging in the air?" House said disgustedly.

A ripple of amusement went through the benches while the lecturer thumbed his notes in despair.

"Aw, leave off, House, he's just a stand in," a good-natured voice from the front interposed.

House leaned forward, clearly intending to object further, but Cuddy instinctively put a restraining hand on his arm. He turned to her, momentarily diverted and clearly surprised, but she held his gaze steadily, cursing herself for getting involved, but unable to allow the lecture to descend into a spiral of chaos without intervening. His gaze moved questioningly to her hand, but she just raised an eyebrow and increased the pressure slightly.

The lecturer grasped the opportunity, "We'll continue, shall we?" and embarked into a long flow of technicalities.

Once the lecture was well under way again, Cuddy removed her hand and continued taking notes as though nothing had happened. She could feel House's gaze on her, while his fingers resumed their nervous drumming.

The drumming suddenly ceased, and she couldn't refrain from turning her head to see what had caught his attention this time. He was staring at a spot two inches beside her head.

"Wanna go out with me?" His eyes met hers for a short moment before sliding away once more to contemplate empty space. It took her a moment to grasp that he'd asked her for a date. Had there been a tentative note in his voice? Wishful thinking, she admonished herself. A few heads in the row in front of them swiveled around at his question, so she quickly got a grip on herself. There was, in her opinion, enough gossip about her, her drive, her workaholism, her geekiness, so there was no need to fuel it by becoming House's … House's what?

Precisely, she told herself, House's heaven-knows-what, because he certainly wasn't the type for a steady girl-friend.

"You are interpreting too much into a simple gesture," she said coolly, one eyebrow slightly raised.

He shrugged casually. "I take it that's a 'no'," he said carelessly, his seeming indifference belied by the fact that he studiously avoided eye-contact, studying the tips of his sneakers instead.

_Interesting_, she thought. _Is he shy or did he regret the invitation the moment he made it?_

The question nagged at her till the end of the lecture, but she was too inexperienced in dealing with males in the mating mode to take up the issue with him. When the lecture ended, she gathered up her things and departed almost at a gallop.

She was barely out of earshot when the heads in the row in front of him turned again to survey House.

"House, you aren't seriously trying to date Lisa Cuddy, are you?"

He averted his gaze from her departing form and swung his feet onto the desk, a study in nonchalance and indifference that would have fooled more percipient men than the ones before him. "Why not?"

"She's all work and no play, that's why."

"She's obsessed with her career."

"She doesn't date losers."

"What a pity," House sighed in mock melancholy. "She's got such nice funbags."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any.'' [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 8]

_**

* * *

The same, four months later**_

Despite the late hour the university library was filled with students revising for their examinations. The harsh neon lighting emphasized the pallor and the smudges under the eyes of most of those bending over their books at the tables scattered throughout the library. Most had come at 8 am, when the library opened, and pushed by liberal doses of caffeine (or possibly something stronger) most would stay till the closing hour.

Cuddy yawned and stretched at her table. She had managed to secure one at a window by sheer dint of being one of the earliest to arrive and the view outside of grass and trees refreshed her tired eyes. Nevertheless, her system needed a boost: caffeine and carbohydrates, she decided. The question was one of time management: should she gobble down her food and rush her coffee so as to waste as little time as possible? She hated that, hated not being able to linger over her coffee, but there was so little time and so much left to do. She finally decided on a compromise between good food habits and personal study discipline by grabbing her notes and a textbook to take along to the cafeteria on the ground floor.

The atmosphere in the cafeteria was loud and boisterous, an antithesis to the enforced quiet upstairs in the library rooms. Groups of students chatted, compared notes and tested each other. Cuddy picked up a cup of coffee and a cream bagel, and moved over to an empty table at one side of the cafeteria. As she threaded her way around the other tables she was accosted by a familiar voice.

"Lisa? Why don't you come and join us?" It was Charlie, John's mentor, with a mixed group of students in their last year. Cuddy had seen him fairly frequently in the last half year, as he had been most conscientious about mentoring John. He was an open and friendly chap, without any of the conceit that older students often showed towards younger ones.

Cuddy smiled perfunctorily and meant to move on, but Charlie had already pulled out a chair for her. It would have been churlish to refuse, so she sat down and arrayed food, drinks and books before her.

"Folks, this is Lisa, a friend of the guy I'm mentoring," Charlie introduced her. "Carrie, Becca and Hurst," he said, as he nodded at the others at the table. Lisa smiled politely, but did not feel inclined to start a conversation herself. She had not really wanted to sit down at their table and would have preferred some peace and quiet, but saw few possibilities for getting out of the situation. Luckily the others at the table, excepting Charlie, seemed as uninterested in her as she was in them. They continued where they had left off in their conversation, ignoring Cuddy completely. Cuddy smiled to herself in silent amusement and busied herself with her bagel.

Charlie leaned towards her. "How are you doing? Project coming along well?"

"Fine, just fine," Cuddy hastened to assure him after swallowing her mouthful quickly. That was only a partial truth as her project was stalling somewhat. Her mentor, George Wicklow, was nowhere near as conscientious as Charlie was. He had shown initial interest, but at the moment she was finding it difficult to get hold of him. She badly needed feedback on her first draft of the final report, but he seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth, taking the draft with him. Cuddy did not, however, intend to share this information with such casual acquaintances as Charlie. She was already berating herself for having misjudged Wicklow with regard to his reliability, but she had no intention of letting others know that her judgment of character had been faulty.

The others were quizzing each other for the upcoming exams, and they reclaimed Charlie's attention. "Charlie, you know the answer to this one, don't you?" the woman introduced as Carrie interrupted loudly, pushing a catalogue of revision questions at Charlie. Charlie turned his attention to them and Cuddy used the opportunity to flip open her notes. She was so immersed in her notes that she wouldn't have noticed the new arrival, had he not been hailed vociferously by her table-mates.

"Greg! Join us!" Carrie and Brock crowed. Charlie smiled a warm welcome, but the object of their interest plopped lazily down at the next table, throwing a medical journal onto its surface.

"You're too noisy for me," House complained. He spotted Cuddy and regarded her with a predatory grin. She nodded coolly as she took a sip of coffee, and then returned her eyes to her notes. "Our over-achiever from undergraduate school." Cuddy ignored him.

He had sat next to her all semester in endocrinology, but he had never tried to hit on her after that first desolate effort. (She didn't count his numerous sexual innuendoes, suspecting rightly that he scattered those remorselessly wherever he went. Somehow she even enjoyed his lack of puritanical restraint. It was odd, but freshly at variance with the political correctness that saturated their surroundings.) He had, however, got less fidgety as the semester progressed, confining his antics to peering at her notes and pointing out mistakes to her. He was irritatingly good at spotting mistakes, homing in on her errors with a surety that belied his somnambulistic demeanor. She'd turned on him once, asking acerbically why her mistakes should bother him.

"Oh, but I need your notes to get through the exam," he had said as though stating the obvious.

"I'm not lending you my notes for revision, so take your own," she had snapped.

"I'm not going to revise. I'm going to copy off you in the exam, so I need to make sure that you get it all right." He had grinned so boyishly that she couldn't help smiling back, but she hadn't taken that seriously. No one in their senses tried to cheat during a medical exam.

The others at the table were urging House to join their revision group, but he declined.

"Exams are useless!" he stated categorically.

"Right, that's why you fail so many of them," Charlie mocked.

"I don't fail; it was just one exam and I was caught cheating, which is not the same as failing it. I came here to become a doctor, not to give dictatorial teaching staff the opportunity to waste my time with useless time-consuming power games."

"How else can they find out whether you'll be a good doctor, if they don't make you do exams?" Charlie queried.

"A test is only valid if it is capable of detecting and measuring the ability that it is nominally testing for. An examination is not a valid test for detecting good doctors, because it can't test the abilities that make for a good doctor," House explained, leaning forward with furrowed brow, hands moving to emphasize his point.

"Oh, and what is a _good_ doctor?" Charlie challenged him. "I don't suppose you know any, do you?"

"Oh, I do know some. Five, maybe, or six," House scrunched up his face as if in deep thought. "But you're right, there aren't many." He turned away from them to his medical journal and immersed himself in it.

"Five or six?" Charlie's voice rose in a mixture of laughter and indignation. "And I suppose you see yourself as one of them in the near future?"

"Yep," House replied seriously without lifting his eyes from the journal. Cuddy could not prevent an amused smile from touching her lips.

The others at the table seemed either completely blind to House's arrogance or intent on pandering to it for whatever reason. Actually, looking at Carrie's eager face, Cuddy had a good idea what that reason might be.

"Oh, I absolutely agree with Greg," she fluted. "Good doctors are so rare! To qualify as good one would need more than a degree. A detailed knowledge not just in one's area of specialization, but in all areas of medicine is an absolute prerequisite."

The others started throwing in ideas:

"One should be able to carry out basic surgical procedures."  
"Got to know modern testing procedures."  
"Keep up with research."  
"A good working knowledge of pharmacology."  
"Management skills."  
"Leadership qualities."  
"Sound ethical attitudes."  
"Empathizing with the patient."

That last remark drew a snort of derision from House. "Bollocks. You don't want to empathize with the patient. If my car breaks down and I bring it to the mechanic, then I don't want him to empathize with it, I want him to _fix_ it. My battered old Ford merits the same attention as Charlie's sleek sports car, never mind which of the two the mechanic may consider more attractive. Empathizing with patients just gets in the way. The patient is a machine waiting to be fixed, and the less you feel for him, the clearer your judgment will be. Yeah, one needs all the qualities that you guys named – well, maybe not the management skills – but above all one needs a clear head and a detached mind."

Cuddy had finished her bagel and coffee, and she now decided to flee this ridiculous 'sparring for Greg House's attention' competition. She rose and smiled apologetically.

"What do you think, Cuddy?" House was regarding her through narrowed eyes. Had he recognized that she was little impressed by their analysis of their future profession? Yes, he was mocking her, provoking her, thinking that she was a shy, impressionable undergraduate who would hate to contradict her elders. Well, he had another think coming along.

"I'm not surprised you don't know many good doctors, House," she murmured. "I'm surprised you know any at all." She raised an eyebrow at him, turned on her heels and left.

He gave a low whistle as he mustered her departing form. "My-oh, we've got attitude after all."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**

* * *

**

[…] she found herself suddenly addressed by Mr. Darcy, who took her so much by surprise in his application for her hand, that, without knowing what she did, she accepted him. [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 18]

* * *

**_The same, two weeks later._**

A hushed silence hung over the examination hall, the kind of silence that magnifies the occasional cough, the rustling of paper and the nervous shifting of chairs. Cuddy cast a quick glance at her watch, strategically placed on the left-hand corner of her desk, as she completed her perusal of the examination paper: four pages of multiple choice, five short essay question, and one long essay question. The multiple choice questions were tricky, very tricky, and the short essay questions were more difficult than the ones in the practice papers, but the long essay question was a dream. She'd save time on that, ten minutes, say, and redistribute the saved minutes on the other two parts of the exam. Satisfied with her time plan, she tackled the first multiple choice questions.

She'd never admit it, but she liked examinations. Exams were impartial and predictable. All that counted was ability, knowledge and methodical preparation. Male brashness made no dents in the solid front of multiple choice, male charm could not wheedle its way around essay questions, and male condescension left no impression whatsoever on ….

A low whistle cut through her concentration. No, he wouldn't, he couldn't be! She glanced to the next desk where House was sitting. He waggled his eyebrows at her imperatively – and there was no doubt about what he wanted. He wanted a glance at her answer sheet.

Cuddy rested her hot face in her hands in despair. This was the sort of situation that she abhorred – she'd spent the whole semester slogging like a slave and taking meticulous notes, even copying them out neatly after class, and she'd started revising for the exam halfway through the semester. And now that she was ready to reap the fruits of her labors, this laid-back jackass of a good-for-nothing had to ruin everything. He'd get busted, _they'd_ get busted, and she'd have to repeat the class next semester. _If_ she wasn't expelled.

Oh, he'd threatened to cheat from her, but she hadn't thought he was serious about it. Surely even House would cram for an exam! Or wouldn't he?

And now the jerk was running true to form, expecting her to help him out. She briefly contemplated letting him run aground, but discarded the notion at once. He was quite capable of keeping up diverse stunts to capture her attention until one of the supervisors came over to figure out what was going on, and knowing House, she would be an unfortunate civil casualty in his war with the authorities. Besides, he had sort of grown on her these past months, like some pervading weed that spoilt the uniformity of the neat front lawn of her existence, but whose flowers had unexpectedly highlighted its otherwise monotonous green. No, she didn't want him to fail this exam.

She completed the first answer sheet and picked up the second one, pushing the completed one casually to the outer edge of her desk on the side House was sitting on. There, that should suffice for House to see which answers she had crossed, and that was as far as she was prepared to go. Let _him_ get caught peering at the answers on her sheets, but she was certainly not going to get busted for whispering answers to him or, God forbid, slipping him little chits of paper.

She continued piling up answer sheets on the corner of the desk closest to him for the next forty-five minutes, checking out of the corner of her eye whether he was making use of her generosity. He was, the parasite! He owed her!

She was on her third short essay question when House's chair scraped back rudely. A furtive glance showed her that he had stacked his answer sheets into a pile and was gathering them up as if to leave. She leaned back in open bewilderment. He couldn't possibly have completed the entire examination - surely he couldn't be thinking of aborting it now?

He clearly was, however, for he slung his coat over his shoulder, proceeded to the front of the room where the supervisor was sitting, and slapped his answer sheets down in front of him. Giving the astounded supervisor a cocky smile, he sauntered through the exit without a backward glance, leaving behind a general murmuring and shaking of heads.

* * *

Cuddy saw House later in the canteen. (Okay, so she was looking out for him, but who could blame her?) He was sitting in a corner by himself, reading a magazine and shoveling food into his mouth in a desultory fashion. As she wound her way among the tables following Lucas and John, she felt fury bubbling up in her. House had coerced her into helping him to cheat, only to ditch the examination with only half the paper completed, so that he was bound to fail it. What was the ruddy idea?

She slammed her tray onto the table with rather more force than was necessary, nearly upsetting her drink, and informed her startled companions that she'd be back in a moment. Then she marched up to House's table and stemming both hands on its surface she leaned towards him, encroaching on his private space. He looked up, startled, but his gaze became appreciative as it slid from her face to her breasts, demurely clad in a high-cut blouse, but certainly emphasized by her stance. She flushed, but she didn't flinch or look away.

"What was that stunt good for? You _couldn't_ have completed the paper. You'll bloody fail!"

He raised his eyebrows slightly and said mildly, "I completed the multiple choice section and two short essay questions. That was sufficiently brain-deadening to last me for the rest of the day."

"You failed the exam on purpose because you found it 'brain-deadening'?" she asked incredulously. "And repeating it next year will be less 'brain-deadening'?"

"My dear Cuddy, the marks allocated to each question were noted clearly next to them. The sum total of the multiple choice section and two short essay questions is sixty percent, which makes a 'D', which in turn is a pass grade. Ergo, I pass the exam."

"Only if you get full marks on every question you tackled," she interjected.

"I will," he said off-handedly. His eyebrows rose in a slight query, as if to ask her whether she had anything else to say while he absentmindedly swirled a lettuce leaf in a soup of Italian dressing. She straightened and turned to go - this was going to go nowhere. Suddenly she remembered and turned back, arms akimbo and eyes narrowed to a glare.

"You know, this is the final call for your lines that go: 'Thank you, Lisa, for helping me to cheat on this paper'!" she snapped.

House snapped the magazine shut and rose, picking up his tray. He advanced until he was right in front of her with only the tray separating them.

"You wanted to help me," he said seriously.

"I. Did. Not." Seeing his quizzical gaze, she added, "Why on earth should I want to help you cheat?"

He shrugged, and then he stated, "You like me."

Cuddy's mouth dropped open. Of all the … she did not, she did so NOT.

He looked down at his tray, saying, "I'm going to this party this evening. I'll pick you up at nine." He paused for a moment, head cocked slightly as if waiting for a reply, but when none was forthcoming he moved away with a jaunty spring in his step.

Cuddy returned to Lucas and John, and flopped into her seat.

"What's up?" John queried.

"I think I just agreed to go on a date with Greg House," Cuddy answered slowly. "I mean," she added hastily as they looked at her in disbelief, "I didn't really agree to go, but I didn't refuse either … oh my God, I'm such an idiot! How on earth am I going to get out of this?"

"Why would you want to get out of it?" Lucas groaned. "He's gorgeous!" Cuddy rolled her eyes. "If you don't want him," Lucas continued, "I'll take him. Why don't we ask if he'll go out with me instead?"

Cuddy smiled perfunctorily. Lucas was the first friend she'd had who was openly gay, and having grown up in a very conservative family, she still found it difficult to react as naturally to his frank appraisal of other men as she would if he'd been checking out women.

"Phone him and call it off," John suggested sensibly. "You could always claim fatigue after the exam."

"Oh no, don't!" Lucas contradicted. "I'm sure he's wildly exciting. Purely from a medical point of view, of course." Seeing her lack of amusement, he said seriously, "Cuddy, don't be silly. You haven't had a date in months – hanging around with John and me doesn't count, y'know – and by now guys are scared to ask you out. Just go and have some fun!"

* * *

Charlotte tried to console her "I daresay you will find him very agreeable.'' [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 18]

* * *

**Author's note**: I have no idea how medical examinations are graded in the US, and frankly, I don't care. If I knew, I'd just adapt the chapter accordingly, but since the grading system (or the exam, for that matter) is of no practical interest to the story line, don't flame me for my ignorance please.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

"Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?'' [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 18]

_**

* * *

The same, later that evening**_

She was ready at nine o'clock; he was fifteen minutes late and offered no explanation. Nor did the rest of his behavior conform to what she was used to from other dates. Apart from driving her to the party and supplying her with the requisite number of drinks, he seemed to feel no obligation to keep her entertained. All Cuddy's attempts at conversation were rebuffed by monosyllabic replies. She finally gave up and immersed herself in her own train of thought. The date, she decided, was probably his way of saying, "Thank you for placing your answer sheets at my disposal," while his present behavior screamed, "Don't get the idea that I'm taking you out because I'm interested in you as a woman." Fine, she could deal with that, since it mirrored her feelings exactly.

He did not ask her to dance, and finally, when other young men came up to her and asked her, she went with them, after glancing at him quickly for his assent. He nodded and turned away in apparent indifference. She returned to look for him when the DJ played one of her favorite songs, U2's _With or Without You_, not even bothering to wonder why she'd want to dance that one with him when she'd had a perfectly good time so far without him. She plucked the can of beer from his hand, handed it to the guy standing next to him, and dragged him out onto the dance floor. House looked slightly bemused at this development and he grimaced as she put her arms around his neck. Cuddy raised her eyebrows expectantly, so he obediently put his hands on her waist and pulled her closer. They danced in silence for a while, and when Cuddy looked up at him, she saw that he was staring into the distance with an unreadable expression. Feeling her gaze, he looked down at her, tilted his head slightly and smiled, but said nothing. He pulled her closer, but his hands didn't stray from her waist, as she had half expected them to do. _All bark and no bite_, she grinned to herself. She had suspected that he was much less of a Casanova than he made out to be, and his present behavior confirmed her suspicion.

After the dance ended, she stood irresolutely, but then he tugged at her hand, "Shall we go?"

The journey back and the walk up to her door were completed in silence. Cuddy didn't mind, since she was still rehearsing her farewell from him mentally. A prim thank you accompanied by a chaste kiss on the cheek would be the way to go, she determined. That would show proper gratitude for the gesture while signaling that she was as interested as he was to keep the relationship on a platonic level. So, she unlocked her door, turned back to him to smile her "thank you", and raised herself on tiptoe to breathe a kiss onto his cheek. At which point he, rather unfortunately (or was it premeditated?), turned his head, making her graze his lips instead. Two pairs of bluish eyes widened in surprise as lips hesitated, hovered indecisively, and then met again. The rest was wild groping, a flurry of discarded clothes and a tangle of limbs as they fell through the door and headed straight for the bed.

* * *

Ideally, she thought afterwards, he'd nod off and stay till the next morning, when they'd start the day together with more sex and breakfast afterwards. But that clearly wasn't going to happen. She would also be satisfied, albeit slightly less so, if he spent a minimum amount of time after the act cuddling her and whispering sweet nothings into her ear before getting dressed and departing.

House, however, seemed intent on flouting all conventions on non-commercial sex by rolling himself out of her bed straight away. Cuddy sat up, fury bubbling through her veins, getting words for a scorching set-down ready in her mind. Something along the lines of 'guys who asked girls out on dates because they were too stingy to pay for hookers'.

But he didn't get dressed. Instead, he prowled around her room stark naked (admittedly a pleasant sight) eyeing the furniture, taking books off the shelves and thumbing through them, picking up objects here and there, and examining them. Nothing seemed too trivial or unimportant to arouse his interest. Cuddy drew her knees up to her body and clasped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees, and observed him, amused at first, but soon increasingly disconcerted. It was … unsettling to have brought someone home for sex (okay, she hadn't brought him; they'd more or less fallen through the doorway in their wild grapple) only to find him more interested in her desk and its contents than in her body. She was getting spooked, so she decided to put an end to it.

"Want something to drink?"

He didn't even look up from her desk, behind which he was comfortably ensconced. "Nope."

Pause. "Aren't you getting cold out there?"

He looked up shortly, sizing up her expression. "Nope."

She breathed in deeply to calm herself before she said with a level voice, "You know, it's the custom after sex to …"

He interrupted her, "Do you always talk after sex?"

She shook her head slightly in disbelief, and then she said pointedly, "Either that, or I have more sex." That elicited a dry grin from him, but he continued looking through the first draft of her pre-med project.

Finally he commented, "You didn't screw it up entirely, but if I were your mentor, I'd make you chop it down to the essentials and get some of the medical facts straight."

She bristled, "George, my mentor, thinks it's fine, and I'm sure he'd have noticed if I had got any of the facts wrong."

"George? Not George Wicklow, surely?" he asked incredulously. When she nodded, he added dismissively, "George Wicklow is an asshole."

"He is not," Cuddy countered indignantly. "He's a sweet guy and he has been absolutely helpful throughout the project." She didn't deem it necessary to mention that his interest seemed to wane now that she had the clinical results of her study.

"Wicklow," House asserted, "is an incompetent jackass and a total jerk. You should have asked _me_ to mentor you, because then this," he threw the draft carelessly onto the desk, "might have stood a chance of passing a close scrutiny."

"It stands every chance of passing _any_ scrutiny. And _you_," she added with emphasis, "chose your protégé according to bra cup size."

He regarded her with a knowing smile on his lips. "That hurt your ego, did it? Is it the slight to your cognitive powers or the rejection of your feminine graces that nettles you?" His eyes wandered slowly down to her breasts. "You know, those funbags of yours _could_ have persuaded me. A push-up bra and a decently low-cut blouse on the day of the presentation, and you'd have had a competent mentor."

Suddenly a thought struck him – she could literally see his brain going 'click' – and he scrutinized her through narrowed eyes. "You had sex with him, didn't you?" She saw no reason to answer that, and after a moment of observing her he said flatly, "Yes, you did." Something shut down in his face. He turned away from her and started gathering up his clothes.

Cuddy fumed. First the comments about her breasts, and now he was judging her because she'd had a bit of fun with Wicklow! Was he implying that she was sleeping her way through medical school? That was so unfair; she had only slept with Wicklow once and that had been long after he had agreed to mentor her. Had House stayed out of Miss Big-Boob's bra? She doubted it.

She hadn't intended to bring up the endocrinology paper again – why ruin his evening when he'd been nice enough to take her out – but his innuendos made him forfeit any compunction she might have felt, had he behaved better. She said, as casually as if she were talking of the weather, "You miscalculated the number of points that you'll get on the endocrinology paper. You're two points short, so you'll fail."

"Will I?" he asked, amused.

"I talked to some of the others after the exam," she explained. "It seems I got two of the multiple choice questions wrong, so you'll have them wrong, too." She was unable to keep a smug smile off her lips.

"Ah, yes, number 15 and number 23, right?" he surmised. "I took the liberty of ignoring your answers and checking the correct answers on my answer sheet. Wasn't I a clever boy, mummy?" He gave her a mischievous smirk that she would have found charming at any other time.

She stared at him, the smile wiped clean off her face as realization dawned on her. "You didn't need to cheat off me, did you? You could have passed the paper without my help, if you had wanted to!"

His silence spoke volumes.

"Then WHY did you do it? Why risk getting caught?" Her voice was climbing higher and she strove to keep it down. "I don't understand you!"

House grinned diabolically. "Consider it a sort of inverse Milgram experiment. 'To what extremes is our self-righteous, morally integer, iron-rod-stuck-up-her-ass little over-achiever prepared to go to keep lazy, selfish Greg House from getting his due desserts?' Besides, it's a good habit to cross-check one's answers. If I hadn't cross-checked my answers with yours, I would have had to complete an extra short essay question just to be on the safe side." This last was said in a tone that clearly implied that he had no intention whatsoever of doing more than was absolutely necessary.

"I think you'd better go," Cuddy said tiredly. His assessment of her character hurt her more than she cared to admit even to herself.

He shrugged and put on his clothes without looking at her. If he was sorry he showed no signs of it. When he had finished getting dressed, he stood at the door and hesitated, his brow furrowed in thought, his eyes on the ground. She thought, she hoped, she wished he'd apologize or say something conciliating. Finally he said, "Mark my words, the results of your little project will turn up in Wicklow's thesis with not a word of thanks or acknowledgement to you. He's using you."

"I don't believe you!"

He shrugged and left.

_

* * *

A few months later, perusing Wicklow's thesis, she realized that House was right. It took a decade for her to realize that __House was always right, and a further decade to recognize that apprising House of the fact that she was seeing other men was asking for mayhem._

* * *

She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in silence; on each side dissatisfied […] [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 18]

* * *

Author's note: The Milgram experiment, carried through shortly after WW II, examined how far participants would be prepared to torture or even kill another participant (who was actually a trained actor), if ordered to do so by the experimenter. The results shocked even those who thought up the experiment. There's oodles of stuff on it on the internet, in case anyone is interested. It was one of very few things that impacted the way I see the world, the other being David Attenborough's series _Life on Earth_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note:** I'm going to have to slaughter Stacy's character to make this work, so sorry to all Stacy fans. Please note that my portrait of the House/Stacy relationship is not borne out by the series at all. From watching the ending episodes of Season 1 and the first episodes of Season 2, I'm pretty sure that regardless of whatever flaws one might find in Stacy's character, House loved her deeply and sincerely, otherwise he wouldn't have been so cut up about their break up years afterwards.

PS: I have no idea what Stacy's maiden name was, so I've just invented one. If anyone knows, let me know.

**

* * *

Chapter 6**

* * *

When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, there was little to be done but to hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without intermission until coffee came in, delivering her opinion on every subject in so decisive a manner, as proved that she was not used to have her judgment controverted. [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 29]

_**

* * *

Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, 1998**_

The sign on the glass door said 'Dean of Medicine', the view out to the front encompassed the lobby and the entrance to the clinic, and the view to the back didn't matter. Lisa Cuddy tapped a pen happily on the file in front of her and wasted a moment congratulating herself. Her six-month trial period was over as of today and she had not been fired. She had always seen herself primarily as a doctor, even when she was inundated with administrative tasks, but her old friend Lucas from medical school had been very insistent and persuasive, so she had finally applied for the post of dean of medicine at the hospital he was employed at. And she hadn't regretted it, not for a day. She was a good doctor, she knew that, but she was also a good administrator, and there weren't many doctors of whom the same could be said. She now realized that she'd be doing more good for the patients running a hospital as it should be run, than she could be doing if she stuck to treating patients and letting some incompetent old codger fumble his way through the day-to-day organization of this giant machine that was Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

She looked up at a knock on the door. The person outside didn't wait to be bid inside – Stacy O'Grady rarely did. Cuddy had long decided to fight battles only when necessary and to avoid fruitless skirmishes, so she let it pass and smiled at the hospital's legal aide.

"Hello, Stacy. Is that the Selwyn file?"

"Hi, Lisa. Yes it is. I've gone through everything we've got on Selwyn and I've spoken to his residents and the nurses of his department," Stacy said, tapping the file in her hand. "You've got a good case for insubordination, harassment and insult. It shouldn't be difficult to prove that his behavior obstructs your work. That should suffice to justify his dismissal, should you wish to fire him."

Relief washed over Cuddy. Her first months as dean of medicine had not been easy. The senior heads of departments had had difficulties accepting that their new boss was (a) young and (b) a woman. She had asserted herself, however, coating the bitter pill of her authority with an icing of charm and selling it with a sprinkling of diplomacy. One of those who nevertheless hadn't bought it was the head of cardiology, Selwyn.

"But?" prompted Cuddy, realizing that Stacy wasn't done yet.

"But he's unlikely to accept losing his job, his pension and all the other perks without a long and nasty legal battle that'll tie you down and endanger your standing with the board of governors. You'd do better to tell him that you'll let him off this time if he agrees to apply for early retirement as soon as possible, which is in two years' time, and if he'll promise to lie really low until then."

Cuddy considered Stacy's advice. Stacy's advice was usually sound, but it went against the grain to have to put up with Selwyn any longer than was strictly necessary. The man had tried to undermine her authority in front of the other staff, and it had cost her a lot of energy to re-establish herself.

"No," she finally said. "Draft a letter of dismissal giving him due notice and all the rest of it."

Stacy's eyebrows rose. "Are you sure? You'll have to justify his dismissal to the board at the next meeting. Selwyn's been here a long time and his dismissal won't go down well with some of the old gentlemen."

"I'm sure," Cuddy said with finality.

"Well, then, let me give you a bit of advice," Stacy said, drawing out the chair opposite Cuddy's and sitting down so that she was on eye level with her. "Dress a bit, well, differently for the board meeting. I know how you feel about it," she continued, raising her hand to stop the interjection that lay on Cuddy's lips, "but the fact is that your style is considered provocative by our older board members. You are charging Selwyn with harassment. Now, you and I know that he would have harassed you no matter how you dressed, but the board might think that you provoked it. You should consider a cooler, more business-like style."

"You mean a masculine style," Cuddy noted.

"If you choose to call it so," Stacy affirmed. It was her preferred style: dark colors, two piece combinations that showed little leg and no cleavage, and discreet make-up. It was not, however, Cuddy's style.

"No," Cuddy stated with finality.

"No?" Stacy seemed put out at the blank refusal of her request, or maybe it had been a demand.

"No," Cuddy repeated. "I have yet to meet the man who does not use whatever advantages nature has given him, whether it's muscles, sheer size or a deeper and stronger voice than mine, in order to intimidate me when he sees the need. I am a woman, I'm short, and I have to shout sometimes to make myself heard, so I am at a clear disadvantage. Hiding my femininity isn't going to change that. No, it'll just deprive me of the one advantage I have, and that is that some men's brains just cease working completely when they see a decent cleavage. If that gets me a couple of ten thousand dollars more for the hospital or an extra pediatrics wing, then that's fine with me."

Stacy raised her eyebrows in disagreement, but didn't contradict her.

At that moment Lucas poked his head around the door.

"Lunch, Lisa? Oh, hi, Ms. O'Grady, am I interrupting something," he said apologetically.

"No, we were done, I think," Cuddy said, rising from her chair.

But Stacy had fastened her eye on Lucas. "Dr. Collins!"

Lucas slunk in, an apprehensive look in his face. Cuddy couldn't but help being amused at his servility.

"Dr. Collins, I met Nurse Watlins at mass yesterday, and do you know what she said to me?" Lucas shook his head. "She said, 'Ms. O'Grady, is that nice young Dr. Collins going to convert to Catholicism? I saw him deep in talk with Father Donetti the other day. That would be so lovely, if that poor, confused young man found his way to God.' I told her that you were spiritually needy, but were unlikely to find your solace in the true church." The last was heavily laced with irony.

She paused, a long, pregnant pause. "Dr. Collins, you are a pediatrician working with children, you are homosexual, and now you have started a relationship with a priest. If you do not show a minimum amount of discretion, something will give, and that something will be your job in pediatrics."

Lucas gave Cuddy an accusing look, and she rose in her own defense. "I didn't tell her anything about your current relationship," she said, throwing up her hands.

"I'm the legal aide here, it's my job to know these things," Stacy stated.

Cuddy hooked onto something else, since Lucas seemed struck dumb. "Being gay doesn't make him a pedophile!"

"Lisa, you and I may know that, but explain that to the parents whose kids are being treated here. This isn't San Francisco and this isn't medical school; this is an extremely conservative area. Dr. Collins, take my advice. You've been nice and snug in your closet, please don't out yourself now. If you're bored in there, add a few more shelves or rearrange its contents. If you decide to have your coming-out here at PPTH, then Dr. Cuddy will have to double my lawsuit budget."

"Shall we go for lunch?" Cuddy inserted diplomatically. The fact that Stacy was in all probability right once more wouldn't make it easier for Lucas to stomach her advice.

As they walked to the cafeteria she made an attempt at polite conversation to ease the tension between Lucas and Stacy. "Are you coming to the fundraiser on Saturday?" she asked Stacy.

"Oh yes. Greg's coming too and he's bringing a friend. Have you heard of him, James Wilson, an oncologist?" Stacy answered with a fair amount of enthusiasm.

"Are we finally to meet the elusive Greg?" Lucas interjected slyly. "I don't think anyone here at the hospital has met Greg yet. We were beginning to wonder whether he really exists." Cuddy frowned at him – there was no need for him to antagonize Stacy, given his present precarious standing at the hospital and his dependence on her discretion. Stacy made no secret of having a boyfriend – she blocked off all attempts of other staff members to take her out on dates by referring to him – but in the six months that Cuddy had been at the hospital, she had never seen Stacy being picked up or accompanied to any social function by aforementioned boyfriend. Speculations were rife as to whether he really existed, and if so, what he was like.

"Greg very much exists, though after the fundraiser I shall probably be wishing that he didn't. Greg House and social functions don't get along well," Stacy said wryly.

"Greg House?" Cuddy's head snapped up. She and Lucas exchanged a surprised look.

"Yes," Stacy's face was a question mark. "Do you know him?"

"Lisa does," Lucas talked himself out of it. Cuddy gave him a dark look.

"Yes. ..I mean, not very well. …We were at medical school together …" Cuddy had no idea why she was stuttering.

"Oh." Stacy mustered her for a moment. "Well, he must have been quite a bit senior to you. You can't have had much in common there – I mean classes and all that."

"Oh no," Cuddy hastened to affirm. "No, we didn't have much in common at all."

* * *

"Upon my word," said her ladyship, "you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person." [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 29]


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

Elizabeth had heard soon after her arrival, that Mr. Darcy was expected there in the course of a few weeks, and though there were not many of her acquaintance whom she did not prefer, his coming would furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties … [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 30]

_**

* * *

The same, four days**__** later**_

It was like being beamed into an alien world.

In the clinic the smell of disinfectant pervaded, with subtle overtones of vomit, stale urine, blood and sweat. Doctors in sterile white bustled in and out of examination rooms of the same white. They walked with heads bowed over files, their foreheads furrowed, the only sound a low muttering and the occasional barked instructions to attendant nurses. Waiting patients conversed in low tones, calmed squealing infants, and hushed unruly children. It was a bit like swimming underwater, Cuddy thought, as she turned the last round of the day. Everything was muted, fuzzy and unfocused.

Entering the lobby on that particular evening was like coming up for a lungful of fresh air after a dive and being greeted by all the sounds, smells and sights that the water had filtered out. The lobby was festooned in drapes and garlands in patriotic red, white and blue. The sterile white neon lighting had been replaced by garlands of pleasantly diffuse paper lanterns. Crews of workers were carrying in and setting up tables and chairs; a catering company was arranging a buffet dinner near Cuddy's office. There was a cacophony of scraping furniture, clattering dishes and general shouting. On a small stage a band was tuning its instruments while a technician carried out a sound test that sent the microphone into overdrive.

Cuddy checked her watch – just over one hour to go – and looked out for Lucas. He was standing in the midst of the frenzy, a sheaf of notes in one hand, and gesticulating wildly with the other hand. He had been entrusted with the organisation of the fundraiser; as a doctor, he wasn't much of an asset to the hospital, but he definitely had potential as an event manager. She walked over to him and peered over his shoulder.

"Look, if we move those tables closer together and scrap one of the buffet tables, we can get in another two tables," Lucas was saying to one of the workers. He turned to Cuddy. "You do realize that selling more tickets than we have seating was not a bright idea," he reprimanded her.

"I was sure you'd cope," she sweet-talked him. "Besides, it's all for the new paediatric wing. You'll be one of the beneficiaries of this evening's intake."

"Not me," Lucas objected. "I'll just get more kids to treat."

Cuddy changed tack. "Is there any reason why the hospital is looking like a Republican convention?"

"It looks like a Republican convention because the decoration is essentially Republican convention," Lucas explained cryptically. Cuddy raised her eyebrows and he condescended to explain, "Stacy was breathing down my neck because of the costs: 'You can't take the money from _this_ budget, because you require a legitimate medical reason, and if you want it from _that_ budget you need the board's approval'," he mimicked her tone. "Jeez, you'd think she was from bookkeeping. Anyway, so the only way I could do this decently within the range of my budget was to call in a favour from a friend. He has access to the decoration used in the last GOP convention in Philly."

"Well, if it saves money, I'm all for it," Cuddy remarked. That was entirely true; ever since she had been burdened with making ends meet and allocating priorities in a business where lack of funding could cost lives, she tried to cut frivolous and useless spending, attempting to channel the money where it benefited the most. "I'm going to shower and change. I'll see you in half an hour."

She took a quick shower in the en-suite bathroom to her office, dried her hair, and then pondered the problem of her attire. She had brought two dresses, one a more discreet affair with a high-cut neck and a long skirt. _You look like a chairman's wife in that_, she thought. The other was a black, sleek confection with a low décolletage, short and tight fitting. She hovered between them, uncertain after Stacy's words a few days back. This was, after all, her first major function since she had become dean, and a slip-up in sartorial etiquette would be noted and discussed for weeks. _What the heck_, she thought and slipped into the black dress before scrutinizing her appearance in the mirror. Okay, that dress certainly was a statement, but then, she believed in making statements. Being a nice, polite Jewish girl had got her nowhere. She was somewhere, and if everyone noticed, then that was just fine. She slipped on a pair of murderous high-heels and stalked back into the lobby, ready to greet the first guests.

Three hours later, she felt as if every muscle in her body had been racked. Her face was stretched into a smile that must, she feared, be reminiscent of a hyena's grin, and her feet were screaming "Sneakers, sneakers!" What on earth had made her believe that she could survive an evening of hard work, because that was what this fundraiser was, on four inches when she normally only wore three? She had smiled and shaken hands with a veritable army of potential donors, she had held a speech that was a nice balance between past achievements and future possibilities, stressing the role _she_ would play in making this best of all possible hospitals better still, she had danced with the most promising donors and had stopped the one or other of them from feeling her up (how high would a donation have to be to make that acceptable, she wondered), and had made a round of most of the tables, chatting to guests and to staff members. She had had no fun at all; as dean she couldn't afford to _seem_ to flirt with any of the staff, and there had been no other male whom she considered even mildly attractive. Would anyone notice if she stopped socializing, sat down and didn't move around any more? In her previous hospital, fundraisers had petered out to a natural end at this time of day; here in PPTH the evening seemed only just to have begun.

She steered towards a practically empty table next to the stage on which the band played and sank gratefully into an empty chair. The band was having a break – only the pianist was picking out quiet background tunes. The table was a litter of half-empty glasses and discarded napkins, and in one corner a young man sat, toying with a fork in a bored manner. He had pleasant, open features, and Cuddy decided that she needn't write off the evening as a complete waste as far as men were concerned. She might still have fun, after all.

Cuddy smiled, "Dr. Wilson, wasn't it?" she asked, although she knew she was right. One reason for her early success was that she seldom forgot names, faces or important facts about people.

He looked up, surprised, and held out his hand, "Yes. I don't think we were introduced, but I know who you are, of course, Dr. Cuddy."

"Stacy mentioned you were coming," Cuddy clarified. She didn't mention that she had looked him up in the internet. Now that she was Dean she had little time for medical conferences. If she wanted to make contacts in the medical world with the aim of sighting potential staff members, she had to keep her eyes skimmed and her ears open all the time. "I understand you're a friend of her boyfriend's." She hadn't seen House yet, so she assumed that he'd chickened out at the last moment. She felt slightly downcast at the idea. It was nice of his friend to accompany Stacy, nonetheless.

At the mention of House, Wilson's eyes flew over to where the pianist sat, and Cuddy followed his line of vision. At the piano sat, not the hired pianist, but Greg House, attired in a tuxedo with the bow tie untied and his collar open, a glass of beer perched on the grand piano in front of him. He looked good. He wore his hair shorter than at school and he looked less like an over-grown school boy. His features had matured, his formerly lanky frame had filled out nicely with muscles, and the crinkles he had around his eyes were those of laughter. He was clearly oblivious to his surroundings, concentrating on variations of some jazz melody that struck a faint chord in Cuddy's memory.

Cuddy could feel a look of annoyance cross her features; bands could be touchy about their instruments, she thought, and the pianist would certainly not want half-drunk guests spilling beer over the keyboard.

"Oh, don't mind him," Wilson hastened to reassure her. "He's better off behind the piano than annoying your staff or insulting the donors, you know. He can be a trifle ..." He broke off and shrugged, raising his hands in an endearing gesture.

"Talking about me, Wilson?" House growled, bent over the keys. He looked up and met Cuddy's eyes. "Hey, Cuddy," he greeted in his usual off-handed manner and continued playing, for all the world as though they met on a daily basis.

"Hello, House. I'm fine, and thank you for asking," Cuddy snapped. She could locate the source of her overall annoyance with him now, and it had nothing to do with worries about the sensibilities of absent band members and their instruments. She hadn't seen him in, what was it, ten years, and she had subconsciously been looking forward to seeing him again, but it seemed that he didn't share her sentiments. She'd spent the evening in a dangerously low-cut dress with ridiculous high heels, getting ogled at by all and sundry, but Greg House didn't deign to notice her! Not that she'd chosen the dress because of him ...

"Ah, old friends," Wilson surmised, grinning knowingly at Cuddy's obvious irritation.

"We were at med school together," Cuddy offered, deciding it was better to come up with all relevant facts than to let House present his version of their acquaintanceship.

"Now that _is_ interesting," Wilson said, leaning forward towards Cuddy. "Was he as much of a," he lowered his voice dramatically "_jerk_ as he is now?"

"I can read your lips, Wilson," House intoned without raising his eyes from the keys.

Cuddy decided that Wilson was slightly wasted, but she thought he was sweet. She leaned in towards him, too. "More so," she said with emphasis. "Can you believe that he cheated during examinations?" Somehow the endocrinology exam still rankled after all those years.

"No!" Wilson exclaimed in mock surprise. "He didn't, did he?"

"I was there; I saw it. And I believe it wasn't the only time."

"No, he has a problem with rules," Wilson acquiesced.

House's fingers hit a dissonance and he stopped playing. "It's not my aim to follow rules. I became a doctor in order to save lives. Rules are for administrators and accountants." There was a note of aggression in his voice that jarred with the playfulness of the exchange between Wilson and Cuddy.

"Ah, and how many lives do you save as, what are you now, a fellow or the head of a department?" Cuddy put a question mark in her tone as she rose and marched purposefully towards the piano. The slight to her job nettled her and she was now in her 'bristles up' mode. He was silent, his glance sliding back to his fingers that were still poised on the keys of the piano.

"He's just been fired," Wilson supplied helpfully. House flashed him a look of annoyance, at which he shrugged as though to say, _Hey, you normally aren't so fussed about admitting that you've just lost a job_.

Cuddy moved in for the kill, leaning over the piano suggestively, exposing, as she knew, a liberal amount of cleavage. "Tell me, Dr. Wilson, why someone with the brains and the undoubted abilities of a Gregory House is not head of a department somewhere, making decisions that will save zillions of lives in the near and far future? It seems to me that following rules and having a positive influence saves more lives than getting fired."

House mustered his fingers as though they held an answer, then he looked up at her. "I can't help it if the system won't let me do my job. Wherever I go, there's reels of red tape tripping me up, and then some idiot shouts at me, and I shout back, and hey presto, I'm out of a job. They want me to compromise, but I _can't_ and _won't_ compromise on medical facts."

He said this casually, as though he didn't care much either way, but she wasn't fooled. She hesitated, wondering whether she dared bare some of her inner thoughts to him, then she said, "You want to do as you like, and at the same time you want the benefits of a hospital that's run like a well-oiled machine. Well, you can't have your cake and eat it, House. Nor can I. I want to make this the best run hospital in the country. In addition, I want a family - a husband and two or three kids. Since I won't compromise on quality in either case, I just do without the latter. At least, for the time being. But I don't blame the _system_ that I don't have a happy family. I am fully aware that it is my priorities that are to blame." Her eyes held his, but he suddenly broke eye contact and his mien changed subtly. It was like looking at his face through a glass pane that suddenly frosted over – one minute one could see into him, the next it was as though he had never exhibited any sort of emotion.

House's face twisted into a smile. "Most likely your propensity for dressing like a hooker is to blame," he quipped, favouring her cleavage with a pointed stare. "That sort of thing puts decent family men off. Ones like our friend Wilson here."

Wilson flushed with embarrassment. "Oh no, Dr. Cuddy, that dress looks just fine to me. Not at all like a ..."

"Oh, it looks just fine to _me_, too," House echoed with an exaggerated lift of his eyebrows, letting his eyes linger along her body in a manner that would normally have made her palms itch to slap him. "But that just proves my point, doesn't it? – I like hookers. It had a marvellous effect on the donors, too." His eyes were back in her face, gauging her reaction as he leaned back and planted his final thrust. "How much are you going to make that old lecher you danced the first two dances with pay for letting him grab your ass?"

"I didn't ..." Cuddy responded angrily. She had put an end to the donor's groping as quickly as she could without causing a scene, not wanting to expose him in front of his wife or to disrupt the fundraiser.

A voice from behind her penetrated their conversation, "What are you guys talking about? Oh, am I barging in on anything?" It was Stacy, who had come up without Cuddy noticing it. Cuddy drew back from the piano, slightly embarrassed and hoping that Stacy hadn't heard any of the last part of their exchange. If she had, it would confirm her in her opinion of Cuddy's choice of clothes, and Cuddy didn't think she'd ever hear the last of that.

Wilson bravely jumped into the breach. "We were just discussing fundraising strategies," he said somewhat vaguely.

"Oh yes," House confirmed with a malicious grin. "We were just saying that Cuddy's approach is very fresh and, ah, arousing. I'm sure it raised any amount of, ah, donors – I mean donations." His ambiguity was not lost on Cuddy, and she narrowed her lips as she turned away. As she marched back to a group of guests she could hear him playing again, this time variations on _The Lady is a Tramp._

* * *

"My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. […] But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault – because I would not take the trouble of practicing." [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 31]


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

[…] to her very great surprise Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy only entered the room. […] They then sat down, and […] seemed in danger of sinking into total silence. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, to think of something … [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 31]

_**

* * *

PPTH, 2000**_

The door of Cuddy's office opened without any prior warning, and she looked up in annoyance. When she saw who it was, her annoyance changed to surprise and to ... dismay. Greg House loomed in the doorway, looking gaunt and tired. She hadn't seen him since she'd discharged him from the hospital after his infarction six months ago, so the change in him threw her completely. He'd lost weight ("Lack of exercise is causing muscle degeneration," the medical part of her brain was telling her dispassionately) his face was etched with fresh lines of pain, his eyes were red-rimmed with sleeplessness ("Or possibly alcohol abuse?" the relentless voice in her mind asked), the mocking smile was replaced by a bitter downward twist, and the lines around his eyes were cynical.

His eyes roamed aimlessly around her office, plainly in order to avoid hers, she realized, as he stumped forward to her desk. Every limping step he took was a silent accusation – _you are the one who made me what I am now _– but she steeled herself against the guilt that threatened to well up inside her as she rose to greet him.

"Greg House," she smiled. "What a surprise!"

It _was_ a surprise – they had seen each other in Wilson or Stacy's company every now and then before the infarction and had been on terms of easy banter, but after the infarction he had been cold, aloof and monosyllabic, encompassing her in his rage against fate in general and Stacy in particular. She had inured herself against his anger while he was in hospital and had kept up a cool, collected front, telling herself that as his attending she had acted right and that his anger would pass. But once she had discharged him, he had not returned as an outpatient, neither for the scheduled check-ups nor for physiotherapy. Stacy had been more than apologetic at having to tell her that he was seeing doctors at Princeton General.

Seeing him now, no longer her patient, but as an old acquaintance and a mere shadow of his former self, she wondered whether her decision had been right, whether it was even possible to make such a decision without taking this particular patient's peculiarities into consideration.

He didn't reply to her greeting – this was not going well from Cuddy's point of view. Instead, he held out a large envelope and muttered, "Heard you've got an opening in ER."

Cuddy's eyebrows rose in astonishment. He must have got that bit of information from James Wilson. She'd employed Wilson soon after meeting him at the fundraiser and had never regretted it. Now that Stacy had left House and Princeton, Wilson was her only (albeit scant) source of information on House. Not that they talked much about him. Wilson's loyalties clearly lay with House, and Cuddy saw little sense in confessing to Wilson how the infarction and her decision to influence Stacy still weighed on her. No good could come of House finding out that his confident and determined attending doctor had been in two minds right up to the operation as to whether the course she proposed was morally sound. She was sure, and had been so right from the start, that it made medical sense, but knowing House personally had made the decision to ignore his wishes harder on her than she cared to admit to Stacy or Wilson. As such, it made sense not to show Wilson how keen an interest she still took in House's well-being.

She and Wilson, however, got on well together – he was a good replacement for Lucas Collins, who had had to leave the hospital a year ago - and it was good to see him regularly, to have lunch with him every now and then, and to know that he'd inform her if there were anything seriously amiss with House. From the few bits and pieces of information that he dropped she knew that House had been shattered at Stacy's departure, no matter how much his own behaviour had provoked it. What Wilson didn't let on to, but she knew nonetheless from the local hospital administrator grapevine, was that House was absolutely incapable of holding a job down for more than a few weeks. Since the infarction he had progressed from bad-tempered eccentricity to foul-mouthed and uncompromising insubordination, a quality that did not endear him to hospital administrators in the region.

If his present appearance, unshaven, unkempt, and in crumpled clothes, was what he considered suitable for dealing with potential employers, then it was no surprise that hospitals in New Jersey and Pennsylvania wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. She could only imagine how much of his pride he'd had to swallow to come to _her_ for employment. She, whom in a moment of pain and agony he had reviled as a _castrating harpy_. She, whose betrayal he considered second only to Stacy's.

"There's no way I'm employing you in the ER. I'd have to fire you within a week," she said crisply. As he made to withdraw the envelope, she reached out quickly and twitched it out of his hand. "But ...," she began. A diffuse plan was forming in her mind, and her thoughts raced wildly around it, examining it from every angle and checking whether its diverse components fitted without a snag. "But I _have_ been planning to open a department for diagnostics." His eyes snapped up to hers for the first time since he entered her office, and she was pleased to note a spark of his former alertness in them. "There'll be a board meeting on Thursday at 10 am, where my proposal will be discussed. I need _you_, as future head of diagnostics, to be here for a briefing at 9 am sharp, showered, shaved and in a suit. We can probably waive the tie," she added as a compromise.

He stared at her as though he couldn't believe her words, then he nodded shortly. " 'Kay," he said.

Not exactly an outburst of gratitude, but it would have to do. "Oh, I should mention that money _will_ be an issue, since I'm trying to carve an entirely new department out of the existing hospital budget. You get no diagnostic equipment of your own, no laboratories, nothing except for an office. Whatever else you need – use of x-ray machines, MRI, lab tests – you'll have to wrangle from the other departments. And you'll get the same salary as an ordinary fellow."

Normally the latter condition would have been unacceptable, but he was in no position to bargain and they both knew it. He nodded again, and when she said nothing more, he turned and limped out.

As soon as he was out of ear-shot, Cuddy picked up the phone and dialled a hospital number. "Dr. Wilson. House was here just now. I offered him a job."

"What? I mean, ... er, as what?" Wilson was clearly stymied. He knew better than anyone else that House was virtually untenable in his present state.

"As head of diagnostics," Cuddy explained.

There was total silence at the other end, then Wilson said very carefully, "Dr. Cuddy, I didn't know we _had_ a department for diagnostics."

"We don't," Cuddy said bluntly, "but I really wouldn't know where else House can be employed without causing total havoc and engendering an endless litany of complaints. From our previous acquaintance, I know that he's unbearable when he's bored." She thought back on his behaviour in endocrinology classes with a regretful sigh – that carefree House was gone and would never return. "Variety in the cases he treats, medical mysteries, and the adrenaline of solving the unsolvable is what he needs. So, I intend to present a proposal for such a department and introduce its future head to the board on Thursday. That's where I need you. I want you to ensure that House is here on Thursday at 9 am, dressed for the occasion and _sober_." She emphasised the last word. "Can I rely on you to see to that?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Wilson hastened to reassure her. "But Dr. Cuddy, why are you doing this?"

The question was justified, and she knew it. A department of diagnostics might make sense, but employing House to run it was near suicidal. If he caused any major damage or got the hospital involved in expensive lawsuits, she'd be the one who'd have to take the blame and her career would be as much on the stand as his. However, she had caught a glimpse of his sharp mind while in Michigan. Moreover, there had been an incident in the clinic a year ago: he had strolled into the clinic in search of Wilson and had, in passing (so to say), diagnosed two waiting patients with serious and rare diseases that the clinic staff had not recognized as such.

"House may be practically unemployable, but the New Jersey hospital tom-toms tell me that as a diagnostician he is pretty much without parallel. His previous employers, unfortunately for both sides, failed to put that quality of his to use. _He_ will not get a job offer like this in the near future, and _I_ will **never, ever** get a top diagnostician that cheap again. Being a thrifty Jewish girl, I can only jump at this chance to get the hospital an edge over the local competition. " Wilson laughed appreciatively at her rather flat little joke, so it served her purpose. "Now, Dr. Wilson, I have precisely five hours to turn out a convincing and financially watertight proposal, if it is to make it onto the agenda in time for Thursday's board meeting. So you'll have to excuse me. I'll see you on Thursday morning."

She put down the receiver and turned to her computer. She knew she'd be able to convince the board of her plans, and for the moment she had House in her hand. The question was how long she could keep him there before he started biting her fingers.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

More than once did Elizabeth in her ramble within the Park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 33]

_**

* * *

Princeton, 2007**_

It had been a good day, one of those rare days on which Cuddy had actually managed to complete all the tasks on her to-do list, a day without any major disruptions or emergencies, a day on which she had not had to calm ruffled sensibilities or clean up the emotional mess that inevitably trailed in the wake of House.

_House_? Cuddy, on her way out of the hospital, paused mentally and physically. She hadn't seen House all day (which explained her sunny mood), she hadn't had to listen to any complaints about him all day (which explained why she'd had the time to complete her to-do list), and she hadn't shouted at him at all today, not even on the phone (which explained why she felt she had missed out on something, had left some important ritual unperformed). Cuddy gave herself a mental shake. Why on earth was she worrying about House? In a hospital this size it was normal not to see, hear or speak to individual employees for days or even weeks on end. Indeed, there were some staff members who worked so smoothly and unobtrusively that her interaction with them was limited to casual common-places during her hospital rounds. Not so House. He reminded Cuddy of her two nephews aged nine and seven respectively: loud, abrasive, constantly demanding attention. And periods of quiet lasting longer than half-an-hour generally heralded some major calamity, therefore it was good to check on them at regular intervals. Cuddy would rather have her calamity of the day over and done with, than go home wondering what evil was brewing in House's office, so she turned sharply on her heels and made for the elevators.

Halfway there, she stopped herself. She could hardly march into his office enquiring why he hadn't caused any major disruptions this past day. Besides, a House-less day was a happy day, she told herself firmly, and she should not provoke the fates by actively seeking him out. This was one of those few-and-far-in-between days that she did not have to work overtime, and she wanted to be out of the hospital punctually. "Relax, stop being such a control freak and head out towards the restaurant", she muttered as she headed back towards the exit, ignoring the puzzled looks she was getting from the nurses at the reception desk.

Twenty minutes later a waiter led her through the restaurant to the table where Lucas Collins was waiting for her. He rose to hug her and kiss her affectionately on both cheeks. "Hi, Lisa. This is a miracle – you made it out of the hospital on time!" He stood back slightly to examine her from top to toe before adding, "You look scrumptious."

Cuddy smiled happily. It was good to see Lucas after such a long time – it must have been three years since they last saw each other – and his compliments were easy to accept. Unlike donors or staff members, Lucas followed no hidden agenda and wasn't trying to get into her pants. She couldn't, however, return his compliment in all honesty. Lucas had always tended towards chubbiness, and now, in his late thirties, he was coming apart at the seams and balding visibly, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Humpty Dumpty depicted in a nursery rhyme book Cuddy had cherished as a toddler. She decided to go for a safe middle road compliment. "You look happy and contented." He did, though.

Lucas grinned happily as he pulled out a chair for her, not fooled a bit by her evasion. "Well, yes, I am. Bill has _finally_ got over having to leave his diocese, and we've bought ourselves a nice house and got ourselves two hulking great dogs. What more can one desire?"

Cuddy smiled reservedly. Lucas' relationship with Bill Donetti, former priest in the Princeton diocese, had been the one Stacy had been so worried about, and as it turned out, not without a reason. Lucas had been the soul of discretion, a quality Cuddy would not have credited him with at medical school, but out in the working world he had become quite the realist. Bill Donetti, however, had been determined to out himself, and had done so publicly and resoundingly during a sermon. Why he had to pull Lucas publicly into the matter remained a mystery to Cuddy, but she had always considered Bill far too full of himself and too garrulous to be likeable. She couldn't for the life of her understand what Lucas saw in him. Predictably, the resulting cataclysm had not only washed Bill's priesthood away, but, as Stacy had feared, Lucas' job. To do her justice, Stacy had tried to stem the tide for as long as possible, but since Bill had had to leave the district anyway, Lucas' will to fight had been limited. Cuddy suspected that Bill, knowing he'd have to leave Princeton once his sexual orientation was common knowledge, had pushed Lucas into the limelight to make sure he'd leave with him. Well, his plans had worked out, but if Lucas was happy, who was she to complain? A partner, a house, two dogs – at the moment he had more than Cuddy could boast of. Bill mightn't be her idea of the perfect partner, but there was no accounting for tastes.

Cuddy and Lucas easily fell back into their old relationship as they ordered and ate, exchanging news and gossip. Although Lucas had left PPTH seven years ago, he still knew many of the staff and was interested in all the hospital gossip. They were lingering over dessert and a long anecdote of Lucas' involving his two dogs, the postman, two police officers and a whole bevy of neighbours, when a premonition overcame Cuddy (or maybe she had sensed an oddly familiar movement out of the corner of her eye). She looked up towards the entrance of the restaurant and her heart sank as she spotted a lanky form hobbling towards them. Somehow, deep in her subconscious, she had known that House would turn up.

Lucas, who had continued talking oblivious of Cuddy's lack of attention, suddenly realized that she wasn't listening any more. "Lisa?" he queried.

"House!" It was more of an accusation than a greeting.

"Evening, Cuddy," he said laconically. He pulled out a chair and sat down, tipping backwards at a dangerous angle as he mustered Lucas. Cuddy steeled herself for the inevitable: House would place a few well-aimed barbs at Lucas to make him lose face, and insult her subtly, but liberally. Then he'd stomp off, leaving behind an atmosphere so tense that she'd be forced to call it a day. She supposed that she should be grateful for small mercies: they'd reached dessert already and this wasn't a date. Her friendship with Lucas would survive whatever animadversions House decided to cast on her character or person. This was no budding romance House could quell in the bud, there was no sexual tension that House could douse with a bucket of cold water; this was just a friendly get-together that could be resumed at some other time if House's antics put an end to it today. Nevertheless, there was no sense in giving him leeway by allowing him to determine the route of the conversation, if one could term anything House initiated as such.

"House, what do you want?" she asked brusquely.

"Need your permission for a procedure," he said succinctly, drawing a file out of his backpack and handing it to her. Cuddy skimmed through the charts quickly – the less time she took, the less opportunity House would have to antagonize Lucas.

House was mustering Lucas intently, and he surprised him by stretching out his hand suddenly, saying, "Greg House. I work at the hospital that Dr. Cuddy runs."

Had Lucas known House better, he would have been wary of such a friendly greeting. As it was, he shook House's hand jovially and replied, "Lucas Collins. I'm a paediatrician and have my own surgery."

"Oh, so Hot-Dates-Online is matching you up by profession now?" House grinned at Cuddy. "I was wondering whether they'd matched your ass to his waistline. It's certainly a fit."

"House, shut up! Lucas, just ignore him." She gave House one of her killer looks before returning her eyes to the file at hand. "Lucas is an old friend. He used to work at Princeton-Plainsboro, just for your information."

"Ah." House processed this bit of information. "Don't remember seeing you around."

"No, I left before you joined," Lucas offered, "but I _had_ seen _you_ around, so I do know who you are."

"So, you two meet up regularly, exchanging news and so on?" House persisted. "I mean, you can't have been around Princeton-Plainsboro for long after Cuddy joined, if you left before I joined. 'Kindred soul' sort of thing?"

"No, I live on the West Coast now," Lucas clarified, "so we don't really meet up often. But it's always good to see Lisa."

House narrowed his eyes at Lucas' use of Cuddy's first name in such a familiar way. He swivelled round to Cuddy once more. "You might want to rethink your decision to use him as a stud. Your spawn would start life at a definite disadvantage – your ass and his waist! Sensitive children have been known to develop eating disorders faced with such a prospect."

Lucas spluttered like a resurfacing whale, "Oh, it isn't like that at all! We're just ... we've known each other since school in Michigan ... I've got a partner, actually – want to see a picture?"

Cuddy sighed in exasperation as she looked up at them. How did House manage to cow all and sundry (except for Wilson and herself) when it was really fairly easy to keep him under control? Didn't they see that he was all bark and very little bite?

The light of recognition spread across House's face. His eyes narrowed once more, but this time in an attempt to place Lucas. "Michigan? Weren't you one of the guard mastiffs that followed her everywhere?"

Lucas looked intensely relieved, "Yes, John, Lisa and I used to hang out together."

"The gentleman of the back door," House remembered. "Wasn't there something with a priest here in Princeton?" He seemed downright pleased about something, while Cuddy wondered just how he knew about Bill and how he managed to store trivial bits of information on people he didn't know at all.

Nevertheless, the conversation was taking a dangerous turn: House had never been known to be strong on political correctness, and Cuddy did not want Lucas victimized by House's latest takes on homosexuality. She slapped the file on the table. "House, why are you bothering me about an MRI? I thought we were talking brain surgery or a liver biopsy at the very least!"

House shrugged nonchalantly. "Radiology won't let me do MRIs without your permission anymore, they say. Not since I broke the last one."

"You broke an MRI?" Lucas said with bated breath.

"One?" Cuddy spat out sarcastically. "That's just the tip of the iceberg. Why didn't you just phone me, House? There was no need to come out here." She paused. "How did you know I'd be here, anyway?"

"Your phone wasn't working and I checked in your calendar."

"House, you broke into my office and ..." Cuddy was speechless.

"Technically, I didn't break in. The door was open and I entered," House clarified, as though that exonerated him from invading her privacy.

"I know I locked it this evening," Cuddy stated emphatically.

"I went in at lunchtime. Thought I might need to know where you'd be. By the way, you should watch out with the dessert. Eat this," he waved the spoon at the dessert that he'd angled away from her, "and that ass of yours will split all those nice tight skirts that you love wearing. Not that I mind, if it does so when I'm around."

Cuddy noted the change of topic as well as his sudden air of happiness. The latter had to be a delusion created by the pleasure he was extracting from eating up _her_ dessert, because House didn't do happy. He only did varying stages of misery. She signed the MRI permission form with a flourish and slapped the file down in front of him, saying, "Go back to work, House."

He obligingly picked up the file and pushed her half-finished dessert back to her. Cuddy watched his departing form as she meditatively took a spoonful of her dessert. He was right – it was _very_ rich and she'd regret it.

"Well, that went better than I thought it would," she finally offered, seeing that she could hardly let House's intrusion pass without some sort of a comment. That sort of incident might be normal in the mad world she now lived in, but Lucas would doubtless require some sort of an explanation. His expression clearly told her that in his opinion the conversation had gone anything but well. "He was quite docile."

"Docile?" Lucas asked incredulously. "He harassed you sexually, ate your dessert and practically made fish fodder of me, and you call that 'docile'?"

"House managed to ruin two dates of mine utterly and irrevocably, so this was absolutely harmless," Cuddy elucidated. "I have no idea how he finds out that I'm going out or why he's so bent on ruining whatever social engagement I enter into, but it's practically a given that he'll turn up and cause havoc."

"Oh, this wasn't a coincidence?" Lucas asked naively.

"In House's world, there is no such thing as a 'coincidence'. Everything has some sort of a meaning."

"Perhaps he's interested in you," Lucas ventured tentatively.

"Interested? Oh, no!" Cuddy shook her head to indicate her disbelief. "If he were interested, he wouldn't just break my dates up; he'd make a serious attempt to date me in turn, wouldn't he? He doesn't ask me out, he doesn't pay me compliments, unless you consider absolutely inappropriate sexual innuendos a compliment, he doesn't go for any sort of thoughtful gesture at all!" She paused, biting her lower lip and wondering whether to confide in Lucas. "I used to go up on the roof to relax after a hard day. After some time I started meeting House there. I thought it was a coincidence, and an unpleasant one at that – we really weren't on good terms after the infarction – so I informed him that it was my favourite evening haunt in the hope that he'd get the hint. Seems it was his, too, despite the fact that he had to climb a flight of stairs to get there. He turned up a number of times when I was there. So I thought, maybe he wants to talk about the infarction or about Stacy, but no! He'd be silent and morose, as though _I_ had invaded _his_ privacy. Finally I just quit going there."

"Maybe he's just shy or doesn't know what kind of a gesture you're expecting?"

"Shy?" Cuddy practically snorted. "House knows _everything_ about me, down to my favourite brand of coffee and the colour of my underwear. He's absolutely obsessive – he even knows when I ovulate."

"What??" Lucas choked on his coffee.

Cuddy cursed herself for letting that slip out, but she knew from Lucas' expression that she'd have to explain that one. "He figured out I was having hormonal treatment some time ago, because he got hold of some cancer test of Wilson's and figured my hormonal levels were way too high for that time of month. And he figured out what time of month it was from my eating habits or something." She didn't elucidate the _something_ any further; her hormonal reaction to babies was something she hated all the more, the less likely it got that she'd ever have one of her own. "So he knew I was doing IVF, he helped me with the injections, but he ... he just wasn't interested in any other way, believe me." She didn't even want to think of the episode in his office when she'd thanked him for the injections and had wanted to ask him to donate sperm, and he'd known that she'd wanted to ask, and she'd known that he'd known. Had he been interested ..., but he hadn't. "He takes a perverse delight in making me mad and ruining my day, but he has no romantic strain at all. He just uses me to work off the frustration that his leg causes, probably because he associates me with the loss of his former mobility. I'm his scapegoat, but if that's what it takes to keep him working, then I can take it."

"Hmm, I don't know," Lucas said dubiously.

"Believe me, _I_ know," Cuddy stated. "Whatever we have, it is not of a romantic nature!"

Lucas decided not to add anything to that – if Cuddy chose to believe her friendship, relationship, or whatever to House was purely work-based, he was not the one to raise potentially false hopes in her. But the episode with the shared dessert had struck him as extremely intimate: both had used the same spoon, they had done so as naturally as though they had been married for years, and neither of them had noticed.

* * *

She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his being partial to her, but Elizabeth always laughed at the idea; and Mrs. Collins didn't think it right to press the subject … [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 32]


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**Author's Note: Massive spoilers for Season 5 finale!**

* * *

"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

[…] she could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions did not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she lost all compassion in anger. [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 34]

_**

* * *

**_

**_Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital_****_,_****_ May _****_2009_**

She sat on the couch in her office, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue and scrunching up the floral decoration that her assistant so prided herself on. The rush of adrenaline that had seen her through the last scene with House had subsided, leaving her tired and infinitely sad. She knew that sooner or later House would follow her into her office, that he'd find some completely over-the-top explanation for his behaviour, that she'd buy his excuse and let him appease her enough to withdraw his dismissal; but she also knew that things would never be the same again.

He had made her angry. Oh yes, ultimately he had succeeded in doing so with his wild stunt in the hospital lobby, announcing to all and sundry that he'd slept with her. She admittedly couldn't remember a time that she'd ever been so angry with him, but even in the first flush of fury she had known that the anger would pass; she had intended to shout at him and expected that he, having achieved his aim, would back down with ill grace and an inappropriate comment or two, accepting whatever punishment she meted out for him (clinic hours) with the intention of wriggling out of it somehow. That was how things had always worked between them.

In the first moment it _had_ seemed to work that way. She had followed him and had caught up with him just short of his office, and she had yelled at him from the depth of her heart. He had listened to her rant as expected, but then he had stopped following the script. He had broken out.

"_I was wondering whether we should move in together."_

For one short delusional moment she had hoped he was making the obligatory inappropriate comment, being his usual jackass self, joking, deflecting, whatever. But she had searched his eyes and had known that he had meant it. The secret of their successful working relationship had always lain in the fact that she could tell whether he really meant the things he said or not, whether he was manipulating or whether he was sincere. At that moment he _was_ sincere, horrifyingly so.

There were people who believed House was slightly autistic, some sort of medical Rainman, but that wasn't the case at all. His antenna was so nicely attuned to social niceties that he could pick up nuances in other people's words and deeds that everyone else missed completely. If he himself did not conform to social norms, it was not because he couldn't, but because he wouldn't. So, if House seriously thought that she might want to move in with him, it was not because he didn't have the ability to sense that he'd overstepped all boundaries of decent behaviour towards her these past twenty-four hours. No, it was because he believed that, despite what he'd put her through, she'd still want to have a relationship with him. And that hurt, it really hurt!

Granted, this past half year she had been wearing her heart on her sleeve, but how could anyone, even a narcissistic egomaniac of House's calibre, imagine that he could insult her family (for that was what Rachel was to her), humiliate her in public, and still command her affection? Was that how he saw their relationship – he just had to snip his fingers and she'd come running, no matter how badly he trampled over her feelings? She must come across as completely desperate, deprived and frustrated for House to treat her in such a casually callous fashion, and she could only berate herself for having missed the streak of sadistic cruelty that underlay his male arrogance. Why blame him – he'd never pretended to care – when she'd been the one to interpret more into their relationship than actually existed.

She saw him approach the door to her office, but she didn't even try to hide the signs of her distress. His actions today had made his opinion of her abundantly clear, so she had nothing to lose. Let him mock her tears or jeer at her distress: nothing he could say or do could possibly increase her misery or self-loathing at this point.

_**

* * *

Two days later**_

With the carrier in which Rachel was sleeping hooked firmly over one arm, Cuddy unlocked the front door with her free hand. She kicked off her heels as she walked into the house, dumped the carrier-cum-child unceremoniously onto the sofa and collapsed next to it. The Chase/Cameron wedding had doubtless been lovely, but she had been too distraught to enjoy herself or even take much notice of the proceedings. She had excused herself early on, claiming that Rachel was teething and feverish, and everyone had politely pretended to believe her excuse, but she knew that behind her back there had been a lot of raised eyebrows and wild speculation. The news of the events of the day before yesterday had spread through the hospital like wildfire, and as a considerable portion of the wedding guests were hospital staff, it had been an effort to keep a cool demeanour and a smile pasted to her face. Few had dared to ask about House, but when someone did, she had evaded, uttering non-committal phrases such as, "a long-postponed vacation" or "stress-related issues". She supposed the team would have to be informed soon, but it could definitely wait until Monday.

Not that she _could_ have told her questioners much more, given that she herself knew next to nothing. House had been as tight as a clam after his break-down in her office, only asking to be taken to Wilson, and Wilson had waved her away quickly, indicating that he would take over from there. Apart from that, he had also been fairly uncommunicative, only leaving a message to the effect that he was taking House to an institution called Mayfield on Saturday. She had tried to phone him, but so far she had only reached his answer phone. Finally, she had left a message asking him to come over for a talk once he returned from dropping House off.

Two hours later there was a gentle knock on the door. That was so like Wilson, to time his arrival that she'd have Rachel well settled in bed and to remember not to ring the bell, so as not to wake her. Nevertheless, she was not placated. She opened the door, but spread herself across the doorway denying him entry, one hand on the doorknob, the other on the opposite frame. She fixed him with an icy glare.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Wilson drew his hand through his hair, obviously for the umpteenth time that day, and squirmed. "He didn't want ... we weren't sure what it was ... we were still diagnosing it ..."

She pushed herself off the doorframe and marched to the living-room, leaving him to close the door behind him. When he caught up with her, she nodded her head at the sofa. He sat down, much as a defendant in court, while she took up a position in front of him.

"How long has this been going on? How long has he been in that state?" she interrogated him.

"I'm not sure," Wilson admitted, "but I think he's been hallucination for two or three weeks now."

"Hallucinating? He's been _hallucinating_?" Cuddy's voice rose despite herself. "House has been hallucinating, he _continued_ diagnosing patients and _you_ helped him to cover up?" Wilson had the grace to look guilty. "Are you completely mad? What if he'd ..." The words left her at the thought of what might have happened, if House had misdiagnosed a patient or implemented some outrageous treatment in a state of hallucination.

"He _did_ ask me to sit in on his differentials," Wilson defended himself, "so that I could stop him from doing something completely insane – I mean, insane even by his standards. And he _does_ have his team."

"Wilson, you are an oncologist. You are hardly in a position to judge whether any of the complex diagnostic procedures or treatments that House's team implement are justified or not. And since when does House listen to his team?" She went off on a different tack. "Just what has he been hallucinating?"

Wilson was silent, playing uncomfortably with the knot of his tie. This was obviously something House was touchy about, but then, who wouldn't be? A hallucination told you all about someone's inner fears and aspirations, and House had never been one to share even the most superficial confidence. After almost twenty years of friendship, if one could call it such, what did she actually know about him?

Cuddy sat down in an armchair opposite Wilson and leaned forward, emphasizing her words with an adjuring look. "Wilson, you know that House caused endless havoc in the hospital the day before yesterday. I fired him. That's his official status at the moment: he is _fired_, and he stays that way unless you give me a good reason why I should rescind that decision. I need an explanation for his behaviour that convinces me that there will be no repetition of those events when he returns from detox in three weeks or so."

She was blackmailing him emotionally and she knew it. She was almost as manipulative as House, but she had to be in order to reconcile all the different interests and claims that clashed in a big teaching hospital such as PPTH. Then again, Wilson _knew_ that she was manipulating him, and she knew that he knew ... It was an unspoken deal that they had: she wanted some information, he wanted to unburden his soul. This way they both got what they wanted; Wilson could justify his indiscretion by pretending he was trying to save House's job and Cuddy could fool herself into believing that she had no personal stake, but only the hospital's best interests at heart.

Wilson threw up his hands in defeat and said, "He kept seeing Kutner." He hesitated a moment, casting his eyes around the room to avoid Cuddy's, and then he added quietly, "And Amber."

Cuddy leaned back, shock clearly written across her features. "Oh my god," she whispered. "He's been seeing people he believes he ... people for whose death he feels responsible." Wilson nodded.

They sat in silence, Cuddy chewing on her lower lip and castigating herself inwardly for not noticing that anything was amiss. Finally she asked, "How did you notice?"

Wilson roused himself from his own thoughts. "I didn't. He came to me when he needed help excluding other possible causes. We finally narrowed it down to his Vicodin abuse."

"Are you sure?" Cuddy asked, frowning. "Schizophrenia seems a more likely explanation in view of his escapades the day before yesterday. A voice from heaven (or wherever House's voices might come from) telling him to expose me to the whole hospital as a whore!"

"No, we excluded schizophrenia," Wilson replied, shifting uneasily on the sofa.

"Wilson, hallucinating about Kutner or Amber doesn't explain his behaviour towards _me_. You're hiding something from me!" Cuddy accused. "It would make sense if he'd yelled to the world at large that he'd slept with Amber, or Kutner for that matter, but .... _oh_!" Realization hit her and she looked to Wilson for confirmation, her face slowly suffusing with a blush, but he was studying his hands. "Wilson, please tell me he _didn't_ hallucinate what I am thinking!" she implored, but Wilson only shrugged apologetically.

A heavy silence fell as Cuddy tried to gauge her emotional response to this revelation. It was one thing to be the subject of someone's sexual fantasies. Everyone had those, she had them too and she certainly wouldn't like the subjects of her fantasies to know that they played a leading role in her mental pornography, but essentially they were of no significance. Just the idea of having _real_ sex with some of the principals of her fantasies was ludicrous. If they came near her in real life she'd probably gag in disgust. A hallucination, however, was a completely different issue. Having sex in a hallucination was like the real thing for the person concerned, hence it was safe to assume that House had wanted to sleep with her in reality, and would have done so, had the real Cuddy been present and willing. _This_ was news. And if that weren't enough of a revelation, judging by his words the next day he had also been disposed towards a permanent relationship. Cuddy would not have been surprised to hear that she was a regular in whatever sexual fantasies House chose to indulge in, but she had never been quite sure whether he really wanted anything other than whatever kick he got out of their continual banter and his inappropriate verbal attacks. Apparently he _had_ wanted more, and if the whole situation weren't so tragic, she'd glean some satisfaction from this knowledge.

"So _that_ was what he meant when he said I was over-reacting to what happened the day before," she mused. "I was talking about Rachel and he was talking about ..." Wilson looked at her questioningly, so she elucidated, "Before I brought him to you, we had a very cryptic conversation. Well, cryptic to _me_. He was exceptionally rude to me the day before, even by his standards – I suppose it was a call for help – and I ... just left him standing there in my office and went home. I was furious with him." She fell silent, guilt washing over her. "Of course, if he thought we'd made it up somehow and I'd actually slept with him ... no wonder he was going through all those antics!" Another memory nagged at her. "The day before yesterday, before he broke down in my office, he said that I'd _helped_ him." She frowned in thought. "Wilson, what exactly did I help him with in his hallucination?"

Wilson sighed. "He hallucinated that he told you about his _other_ hallucinations and asked you to help him detox. You did so, and _then_ ...." He rolled his hand trying to put into the gesture what he wanted to avoid mentioning.

Tears shot into her eyes, and she had to turn away to hide them from Wilson. Hallucinating about sleeping with her was a compliment in some screwed-up way, she supposed, but one that was slightly difficult to accept. Hallucinating that he'd asked her for help in order to detox - _her_, _not_ Wilson - touched her deep down in some emotional layer she hadn't known she possessed.

"Oh, House," she whispered, "oh, House!"

* * *

[…] when she considered how unjustly she had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against herself; and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion. [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 37]


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

* * *

Her coming here was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the world! […] It might seem as if she had purposely thrown herself in his way again! […] And his behaviour, so strikingly altered, - what could it mean? […] never had he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting. [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 43]

_**

* * *

Autumn 2009**_

'Awkward' didn't even begin to describe her situation. These past weeks since House's return from Mayfield Cuddy had avoided House as much as possible, but whenever that hadn't been possible, she had deflected the conversation from personal issues. At first it had worked well; in fact, she had gained the impression that he had moved on and wasn't interested in a personal relationship any more. But lately he had shown some interest again, sometimes in rather a sweet way, and she had been hard put to avoid a show-down that might hurt his feelings. Avoiding situations that might provoke a declaration of his feelings and force her to show her hand seemed the best strategy. But now she had to spend two days in close proximity with him, and she only had herself to blame. She had been foolish to ignore the possibility that Wilson, conscientious and over-protective as ever, might decide to take him along to the conference.

It didn't make matters any easier that House had been unusually considerate and open ever since his return from Mayfield. Okay, he still tried to jerk her around occasionally, but the cruel edge was gone, and he actually seemed to have stopped deflecting whenever things got personal. His "you make me feel funny" had made her feel funny, too. It was a bitter-sweet reminder of what might have been, if only they had ...

Well, there was no use in going down that road. He had chosen the path to self-destruction that had terminated in Mayfield, and she, she had moved on. There was little sense in pondering what might have been if he had been the man he seemed now. He simply _hadn't_ been that man, and now it was too late. She'd had to choose, and she had chosen the path of self-preservation for herself and for her daughter. His stay in Mayfield, originally projected at three weeks, had dragged on interminably, all forms of contact had been denied, and there had been no guarantee that he'd ever recover sufficiently to return to Princeton, so ultimately she had given up on him. She had been lonely and vulnerable, and Lucas Douglas was sweet and caring. He was clever, attractive and funny, and he was a family man. No, she had no reason to regret her choice. But she owed it to House to break the news gently, with as little hurt and humiliation as possible. Lucas didn't understand that; he thought that House was as tough as the outer shell that he presented to the world at large, but she knew better. She was pretty sure that he cultivated that shell to protect an ultra-soft kernel within, a mess of inferiority complexes, insecurity and unresolved conflicts. Unfortunately, that shell hadn't been much in evidence lately, and Cuddy feared very much that a disclosure of her relationship with Lucas would, now that House was open and showing vulnerability, lead to some kind of major show-down or even provoke a relapse. And that was not an outcome that Cuddy wished to be responsible for: she had helped to cripple him, she had enabled his Vicodin addiction for years, and she had been so tied up with Rachel that she hadn't noticed he was having a break-down. The last thing she needed now was the guilt that would ensue if she pushed him over the edge again.

Driving down to the conference in Wilson's car and pretending to be engrossed in her conference notes while the men bickered in a good-natured manner in the front, she devised three rules to see her through the weekend.  
Rule no. 1: Avoid House as much as possible. If you can't do that, then apply Rule no. 2.  
Rule no. 2: Avoid creating false hopes by showing him gently, but firmly that you're NOT interested.  
Rule no. 3: Avoid unnecessary stress by keeping Lucas Douglas a secret.

Rule no. 1 went down the drain first thing that very evening. She saw him arrive at the 80's party, a prominent figure not only because of his height, but also because of that ridiculous wig and tailcoat that he was sporting. It would have been simplicity itself to submerge in the crowd and get out of there long before he spotted her. Instead, she allowed her amusement at his devious sense of humour get the better of her, and advanced towards him. This was the House she knew and liked: quirky, surprising, and unpredictable, hence her gut reaction. Besides, although she hadn't been at the party for very long, she was bored stiff already. Doctors in general could be a dreary bunch; that wasn't something that could be changed by letting them have a juvenile dressing-up party coupled with unlimited access to alcoholic beverages. House promised relief from the tedium, for he was never boring. Nor had she any illusions as to the outcome that a number of her colleagues probably envisaged for the evening, namely hitting on an attractive specimen of the opposite sex and having a short fling, with the spouse at home none the wiser. Females being a minority at the conference, she had already had to ward off several undesired advances. The uplift in her mood on seeing him was, as she firmly told herself, relief at not having to deal with the advances of Dr. 'Ghostbuster' and had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it was _House_ who had rescued her.

Rule no.2 niggled at the back of her mind when she allowed him to pull her into a slow dance, but she pushed it firmly into her subconscious, telling herself that she, and he, could surely handle one little dance after an acquaintanceship that spanned twenty years. Nor did she see any harm in indulging in a few college reminiscences – it wasn't as if their 'association' there had led to anything. Much to the contrary, in fact, for his desertion after their one-night-stand had rankled for a long time. She had come to the conclusion that he must have avoided her on purpose after that, for not only had he never called, but she had never actually seen him around the campus again, not even in any of his favourite haunts. And yes, she _had_ frequented his favourite haunts, the library and the cafeteria, in the hope of bumping into him casually.

Rule no. 3 was driven out of her mind completely when House disclosed that the only reason he had been conspicuously absent from her life after their fling was because he had been expelled from medical school the next morning. She hoped (and feared) for one moment that this was a House scam, but looking up into his eyes she saw that he was serious and that the disclosure was absolutely intentional. She could picture his reaction to his expulsion clearly: House, humiliated at being expelled, not daring to get in contact with the over-achiever of the year, fearing that she would despise him for not being able to take the straight and narrow road to medical qualification. House, rationalizing his fear of rejection by telling himself that it wasn't worth the bother staying in contact with her if he was to attend another medical school from now on, that long-distance relationships were doomed anyway, that they were too different for a successful relationship, and besides, it had only been sex.

The message was clear: House had been interested in her then, and his eyes said he was interested now. No ambiguity there. What she _should_ do was clear enough: a tight smile, some statement to the effect that that all this was history, a slight withdrawal out of his embrace, and a decided change of topic to show her unwillingness to go down that road - that was how she would have handled the situation, had she been in control of it. But she wasn't. Her feelings were in turmoil. There was a wash of relief that she hadn't been just another notch on his bedpost. But stronger than this balm to her wounded pride was dismay that she'd got herself into a situation that offered him a chance to display his feelings, and panic at the thought of what would ensue if she didn't manage to stop House from making an unmistakeable move on her. And underneath all that, hardly registering consciously, an unseen current, but pulling all the stronger for that, was the unacknowledged truth that she was still susceptible to him and that, contrary to all her inner protestations, she had provoked this moment of intimacy. She had wanted to know whether she still had any power over him, but now that she knew, disgust at her own selfishness and callousness overcame her. She left him standing on the dance floor and fled to her room, determined to take whatever steps were necessary for her to start acting in a mature and responsible manner once more.

Back in her room, she punched in Lucas' number hastily without thinking about the consequences. Could he come up as soon as possible, Rachel was teething and being a bit of a bother, and tomorrow in the early afternoon was the infectious disease panel that she absolutely _had_ to attend? Lucas had an observation scheduled for the night, but he thought he could make it by mid-morning. Cuddy sighed in relief as she put down the phone. Rachel really _was_ teething and tomorrow _did_ promise to be strenuous unless she got some sort of care for her. Seeing Lucas would help her to set her skewered priorities right again and to keep in mind what she gained out of a relationship with him. Lucas was supportive, whereas House was demanding; Lucas was cheerful, House morose; Lucas always put her and Rachel on the top of his agenda, whereas House resented Rachel and was liable to forget all about her if he was involved in one of his cases. Having good-natured, good-humoured and sane Lucas around would make her see all the more clearly how lucky she was to have escaped from the bedlam and chaos that surrounded House.

It was only when Lucas arrived late the next morning that Rule no. 3 suddenly reared its ugly head again.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note:** Since I'm quoting extensively from Season 6, Episode "Known Unknowns", here's the disclaimer. I don't own anything or anyone, all quotes in italics are from the above named episode, all other contents spring from my imagination.

**Heavy Sp****oilers for "Known Unknowns". **

**

* * *

Chapter 12**

As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire: and as she drew a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintanceship, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance. [Pride and Prejudice, Ch. 46]

_**

* * *

The same**_

A sense of imminent doom clouded the next day for Cuddy. She had had a bad night – the few hours that Rachel had been blissfully quiet, her own thoughts had chased around her head, playing tag with each other. Breakfast was a morose affair. House hadn't shown up at all, a show of tact for which she was grateful, but this little mercy was far outweighed by the gloom that Wilson spread. He was clearly preoccupied by something and, contrary to his custom, barely monosyllabic. She wondered whether House had told him about the previous evening and if so, what House's version had been. It was clear to Cuddy that her behaviour deserved the epithet 'confusing' at the best; at the worst it rated a 'cock-teaser'.

Cuddy's mood was not improved when the conference crèche called her out of a session because they couldn't deal with Rachel any more. Rachel was grouchy after her rough night and in no mood to be comforted by total strangers, and Cuddy cursed the fit of optimism that had made her take Rachel to the conference instead of asking her mother to come to Princeton to look after her. But time with Rachel seemed so scarce and her conference schedule had such large gaps in it, that it had struck her as a shame to waste the opportunity of spending time with her.

Cuddy's sense of foreboding reached an all-time high with Lucas's arrival. It suddenly struck her that although she could hide Lucas in her room most of the time, there was still the problem of meals. They were in a conference centre, not a hotel, and room-service was not part of the deal. Somehow all her rules and arrangements seemed to be coming apart at the seams.

Lucas was mystified at having to park his car at the far end of the parking lot, well out of sight of the conference compound, but had done so without a comment. That lulled Cuddy into a false sense of what he was prepared to put up with. She was too tired and nervous to notice his raised eyebrows when she informed him that House was at the conference, and she completely missed the undertone in his voice when all he said to having to stay in the room with Rachel in order to avoid discovery was, "Oh, really?"

"Yes, I really think that at the moment it's the best option. House is ... vulnerable," she ignored his snort, "and showing interest, and I really don't want a scene here at the conference."

"Lisa, just for interest's sake, exactly when do you intend to let your friends know about me? You realize it's a little depressing to be the skeleton in your closet," Lucas inquired with an ironic quirk. "Are you ashamed of dating a sleazy PI, or is it that I'm younger than you, or what is it?"

"Oh, goodness, it isn't any of that, honestly!" Cuddy hastened to reassure him, not realizing that her following explanation did little to reassure Lucas. "It's really only House. I can't let anyone _else_ at the hospital know, because believe me, if anyone else knows, House will find out. He knows _everything_ that goes on at the hospital."

"So House is interested. Well, he's _always_ been interested in his own inimitable way, he's _always_ been harassing you, and you've _always_ dealt with it. What's new? That he fantasized about sex with you? Wake up, Lisa! He must have been fantasizing about you under the shower for years – what functioning male wouldn't? That does _not_ make him vulnerable, and confessing to it is probably just his sick way of screwing around with you," Lucas argued. "Put him down the way you always have, and the two of you will be just fine!"

"Lucas, he didn't _fantasize_ about sex with me, he _hallucinated_. There is a difference!" Cuddy responded impatiently. She hated talking about that aspect of House's illness with Lucas, but she had disclosed that much to him already in order to justify the discretion she practiced at the hospital in not letting him pick her up from work, and she had also explained the difference between a fantasy and a hallucination. At the moment, however, Lucas wasn't in the mood to appreciate the difference, or rather, he was fully aware of the difference, but he didn't like House any the better for it or condone Cuddy's deference to House's emotional well-being. Seeing Lucas's obvious scepticism at the measures she was taking to avoid discomfiting House, Cuddy reluctantly added, "There was more to it than just sex, anyway."

Lucas, quick on the uptake, caught onto her reluctance at once and looked up from where he was playing with Rachel. "U-huh?" he queried. "Did he hallucinate a wedding, six kids, and a house with a spacious back-yard?"

Cuddy sighed and chewed on her lower lip. She depended on his cooperation, and that would obviously not be forthcoming unless he saw the matter from her point of view. She paced the room, talking quickly to cover up her embarrassment, "He realized he was having a break-down, so he came to me for help. He never actually got down to asking for it, but he hallucinated that he did. Ask me for help, I mean." She looked down at Lucas, on the floor with Rachel, but gazing up at her with avid interest. "And that I helped him to detox. The sex part of it was just ..." she waved it away with her hand. "So you see, this was more than just a dirty little sex fantasy with his boss, this was about our friendship and me caring and, oh, I don't know."

"And sex," Lucas added drily. Catching her murderous glance, he threw up his hands and said, "Oh, I got it, don't worry, I got it! You were the guardian angel who caught him in her gentle arms when he went into steep descent off the temple roof. But he was in rehab for over six months – they must have done something for him there, or he wouldn't be running around at large now, would he? If he was as likely to go into a loop again as you seem to think, they'd have kept him there. Trust me, he's a lot tougher than you think he is."

Cuddy hated it when he talked about House that way, but there it was obvious that he was touchy on the issue, so she decided not to press it any further. She shrugged and knelt on the floor next to him, rolling a ball to Rachel and joining in their game in the hope that by the time she had to go to the panel, Lucas would be reconciled to his fate.

* * *

Things went completely pear-shaped after that. All through the afternoon panel on infectious diseases, the scene in her room re-played in her mind: House knocking at the door of her room, House hearing Rachel and pushing past her, House recognizing Lucas and assessing the situation, House looking at her with dawning realization and hurt, House behaving like a gentleman and leaving. Especially the latter. She could have borne it better, had he deflected and been the jerk he usually was when he ruined her dates. It would even have been fairer, a sort of atonement for her behaviour, had he confronted her with it and reproached her or exposed her in front of Lucas. But no, he had actually done the decent thing and had left as unobtrusively as possible. Lucas had practically crowed his delight, saying that he hadn't thought it would be that easy and that now he needn't hide like a leper. He'd stopped crowing though when she had snapped at him and then burst into tears. It was stupid, seeing that it wasn't his fault, but she couldn't help herself. And attending the panel was a complete waste of time. She couldn't focus on it at all, and her colleagues were probably having their prejudices about working power mums confirmed in all aspects.

There was worse to come. Lucas picked her up from the afternoon panel with the baby phone clipped to his belt and the news that Rachel was finally asleep. _He_ saw no reason to hide any more, and since Cuddy could think of no cogent explanation for wanting to hide from House and Wilson, she had no choice but to accompany him to the restaurant. In the restaurant, Lucas spotted House and Wilson sitting at their usual table, and he steered straight for them, ignoring Cuddy's remonstrance.

"Come along. We haven't done anything wrong, and it'll just be childish to avoid him," he insisted. Cuddy had to concede that he had a point. She couldn't avoid House and Wilson forever, and maybe it would be easier dealing with them in a public venue than have them march separately into her office in PPTH and cause the sort of scene that only they of all her employees dared to inflict on her. She changed her mind about the advantages of a public venue, however, when she registered Wilson's stony mien and the crackling tension between Lucas and House. She'd forgotten what a show-down between two would-be alpha males could be like, for even though House seemed remarkably tame, something about him clearly made Lucas bristle. If asked, House could probably lecture knowledgeably on how female pheromones made contesting males aggressive and competitive ...

At least House was behaving in a civilised manner, she registered with relief, as he asked pseudo-casually how they had got together. No sharp edge there, no aggression towards Lucas. She answered somehow or other, unconsciously slipping into administrator mode, but then House caught her off guard by asking openly whether it was his mental health that had provoked their secrecy. She should have expected this, for House had never been one to beat about the bush, but the look he gave her made her quail inwardly. That was nothing, however, to how Lucas made her quail. How could she not have noticed that he was seething inwardly at having to hide from House?

"_I had to hide in our room and be the dirty little secret and it sucked. I told her it wasn't necessary – so you had some hallucination about having sex ..."_

Cuddy tried to stop him, but it was like trying to stop a downward bound roller coaster. Lucas gained momentum and he seemed to have gauged his opponent accurately. House clearly had no intention of fighting back, so Lucas could place his punches with unerring accuracy.

"_I mean, I imagine having sex with women all the time, no big deal, though I guess if they knew what I imagine it could get a bit awkward."_

Cuddy steeled herself against the waves of outrage washing over her from the other side of the table by telling herself that, yes, Lucas was betraying her confidence, but no, he wasn't saying anything that wasn't common knowledge in PPTH by now, considering that House himself had chosen to divulge that part of his hallucination to everyone present in the lobby on that memorable day. But then Lucas aimed a punch at House's soft parts:

"_I guess it was different because in the fantasy she was your saviour ..."_

Cuddy didn't register the rest of Lucas's rant. She couldn't ignore the message in House's eyes any longer, the hurt that she'd subject him to this humiliation, the reproach that her short-term relationship with Lucas counted for more to her than the years they had known each other, the sense of betrayal that he felt at finding out that she of all people had light-heartedly passed on his innermost secret.

She had known that he'd have to know about Lucas sooner or later, but she'd assumed that there would be a right moment to break it to him, that he might be upset at first, but that sooner or later they'd ease back into the relationship they'd had before this sexual tension thing had mixed it all up. Not that she could exactly place the era before the sexual tension had started, but she was sure that there had been such an era – there _must_ have been! Now it was clear that such a time could never come back, and it was entirely her fault. She had gossiped about a most intimate matter to his rival, the one person who was practically as percipient as House and as ruthless in using his knowledge; and it suddenly dawned on her that Lucas was nowhere as easy-going as she had assumed. Nevertheless, ultimately _she_ was to blame, because _she_ was the one who should have been trustworthy, as House had always been in all things that truly mattered. Wilson, much as he enjoyed relieving himself of the burden of knowledge, would never have confided House's hallucinations to her, had he not felt certain that she wouldn't pass them on.

House had been publicly and resoundingly humiliated by Lucas, and while he seemed to take it with grace, it was clear that he would never be at ease with her again. He'd never turn up unexpectedly in her favourite haunts again, never again barge into her office and occupy her sofa for no ostensible reason, and never knock her out of her bed in the middle of the night to sign off some unnecessary treatment. They would not run into each other 'by chance' in the corridors of PPTH, but only when it was unavoidable, she would not come to his office to sit at the foot of his armchair and share some confidence, and he would not check out her ass any more. Her future at PPTH spread before her drab and dreary, she had lost at least one, if not both her closest friends, and for the first time she wondered whether her fantasy of an intact family life was worth the sacrifice.

* * *

Cuddy waited until Lucas had shut the door to their room before rounding on him. "What on earth did you have to do that for?" she hissed at him, trying to keep her voice down so as not to wake Rachel. "I can't believe you did that!"

Lucas sat down on the sofa and looked up at her with a remorseful expression, spreading his hands eloquently as he talked. "Look, I'm sorry, but you know how it is. It was an embarrassing situation, you were all looking like someone had died or something, and I just thought, 'Lucas, you've got to say something,' and then my tongue ran away with me. I know I put my foot in it, but hey, that happens. House took it pretty well, if you ask me. He was fine with me, let me buy him a drink and all that."

Cuddy glared at him. "You knew _exactly_ what you were saying, Lucas Douglas. You're pissed at me. Fine, I got it. Then take it out on **me**, not on House!"

Lucas leaned back, mustering her. He dropped the remorseful look and glared right back. "Okay, I did it on purpose. But what did you expect? House returns from the loony bin and I have to go into hiding. How do you think that feels? How do you think I feel, when it's always, 'We've got to be careful, otherwise House will get hurt!' What about _my_ feelings – they can get hurt too, you know! I'm not dumb, Lisa. I know that if it wasn't for Rachel, you wouldn't be dating me. But ... but I can live with that. You're a wonderful woman and Rachel is a wonderful kid, and if I can have all that, then I can live with the fact that I'm second choice and will always be priority number two or three on your list, after Rachel and after the hospital. But I don't want to rank somewhere below House, not now that I'm dating you and he isn't. You're going to have to be clear about that!"

Cuddy felt completely deflated. The turmoil she had been in ever since House's return had blinded her completely to what Lucas must have been feeling. And he was right: she had to choose and not just outwardly. She'd have to take an inner decision too, for one or the other, but it wasn't fair on Lucas to expect him to stick around while she sorted out her feelings for House. She was reminded rather sickeningly of Stacy, who had also weighed her options carefully and extensively, while both men involved got hurt. She, Cuddy, had disapproved deeply of Stacy's behaviour, and by the same token her own behaviour was not to be condoned.

It was, ultimately, not a difficult decision. House had shown interest, but nothing more. His attitude towards Rachel was unclear and his level of commitment uncertain. He was depressive, he might (and probably would) relapse into addiction sooner or later, and even at his best he was not easy to get along with. She wasn't even sure whether she'd risk her own sanity by entering a relationship with him; how could she risk her daughter's feelings by saddling her with a father-figure who might not be able to give her the stability she needed or, even worse, might not want to give it to her? Cuddy knew she'd be angry with House if he disappointed her, but if he disappointed Rachel, she'd hate him. If House knew what expectations she had regarding their relationship, would he even want it? Would it be good for him? No. He mightn't know it, but he was a lot better off hanging around with Wilson and living his bachelor life than trying to live up to the expectations of a control freak who was looking for a committed father for her child.

Having settled everything to her satisfaction, Cuddy felt relief and an easing of the tension that had been stiffening her spine. She turned to Lucas and smiled, her first genuine smile of the day.

* * *

Postscript: My buffer of reserve chapters has shrunk from four chapters when I started uploading the story to nil as of date. So, the next update might take some time.


	13. Chapter 13

Author's note: Fans of Lucas Douglas, beware. This is where his character gets libeled by this author's too vivid imagination and her desperate need to pressurize the plot into the P&P frame.

Critical reviews are welcome.

**Chapter 13**

* * *

'Dearest Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you and it cannot be delayed. […] I cannot help earnestly begging you all to come here, as soon as possible.' [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 46]

_**

* * *

Princeton, 2015**_

Lucas Douglas slouched into the kitchen, red-eyed and tousle-headed, and made straight for the coffee machine. He snatched his favourite mug from the counter, a birthday gift from Rachel with the inscription 'World's best Dad' and her fingerprints in coloured paint all over it, and filled it with strong black coffee. Armed with the mug, he sat down heavily and surveyed his family blearily.

"Hey, Dad," chirped Rachel with the energy that only a pre-teen can evince at 7 am.

"Morning, Lucas," Cuddy joined in, in somewhat more subdued tones. Lucas grunted, and his women smiled at each other knowingly as Cuddy inquired, "When'd you get back last night?"

"4 am." Lucas buried his face in his hands to shut out the light.

Cuddy's brows rose in a slight frown. Then he'd had less than three hours' sleep and would be practically unapproachable the rest of the morning. Which was somewhat awkward, as she was off to work in fifteen minutes and there were still one or two things to settle till then.

"Lucas?" she tried to catch his attention. He looked up wearily and she felt sorry for him. He had to do many night observations in order to be more flexible during the day when she needed to be at the hospital. Still, this past year his work load had increased rapidly, and it seemed to her that they hardly saw each other anymore. He'd leave for work practically the moment she re-entered the house in the evenings, he'd return at some unearthly hour, and though he tried to be up at breakfast time for Rachel's sake, he was the epitome of a morning grouch and it was no use trying to initiate any form of communication before noon. That effectually meant that they weren't talking any more except at weekends.

Lucas finally looked up. "Yeah?"

"I'll be leaving for the airport straight from work, so I won't see you before I leave. All of Rachel's extra-curricular activities are noted in the planer. Is there anything else we need to discuss before I leave or are you two going to be okay?" It wasn't the first time that Cuddy was leaving Rachel with Lucas while she attended a conference, but it was the first time she'd be gone for more than three days at a stretch. This time she'd be gone for ten days, attending a conference on public health in London and then visiting a former room-mate there.

"Yeah, we'll be just fine," Lucas answered automatically. Then his eyes widened and he said, "Oh shit! I've got observations this coming week, starting tonight." Cuddy's eyes automatically flew to the family planer hanging on the kitchen wall, but there was nothing noted over there. "Change of plans," Lucas explained. "I haven't noted it down yet."

Cuddy couldn't hide her exasperation. "The conference has been in the planer for months. Couldn't you have said something? I can ask my mother to come up, but I doubt she can make it today." Cuddy's mother had reached an age where she needed a few days to 'get sorted' when confronted with the journey to Princeton and the prospect of looking after a lively six-year-old.

"No, this came up at short notice. My clients wants results 'stat', as you guys say, and I can hopefully wind up the case within the week," Lucas replied, rubbing his hands over his face. Cuddy had the impression that he wasn't too sorry about all this bother, an impression he confirmed the next moment. "Look, I know this is inconvenient for you, but our deal is that you I cover day times and you cover evenings and nights. If you can't be here by six-thirty pm, then _you_ need to organize a babysitter."

Cuddy regarded him in silence, her lips thinning. Rachel was looking down at her plate, sensing the tension between her parents and trying to ignore it by ignoring them. Of course, Lucas was in the right as far as their working arrangement went. If she had a late-evening meeting or an out-of-town event, _she_ was responsible for making arrangements for Rachel that allowed Lucas to pursue his profession. Conversely, if Lucas had commitments that prevented him showing up in time to pick Rachel up from school, then he had to organize a stand-in. Yet there was a sort of unwritten rule that if one of them had a long-planned commitment such as Cuddy's conference, then the other would re-schedule his working hours accordingly. Cuddy wondered whether the unplanned observations were an expression of his resentment at her dedication to her profession or her impending longer absence.

"Okay," she finally said, switching into administrator mode. Treating Lucas as she would treat a difficult employee helped her to focus on the current problem and to keep her temper in check. Unlike House, Lucas did not thrive on being yelled at. "I'll phone my mother. She might be able to make it by the day after tomorrow. I'll find someone else for today and tomorrow, and I'll text you as soon as I know who it is. Do I need someone just for the nights or is it from after school onwards?"

"The full programme," Lucas mumbled, finally looking slightly guilty.

"Right," Cuddy said, adding 'Organize babysitter with car' to her mental to-do list. Great, she thought, as though there weren't enough last-minute crises at the hospital to deal with! "Got to go," she said, standing up from the table and pulling Rachel into a tight embrace. "Honey, I'll call you every day," she said, swallowing the lump in her throat.

Rachel wriggled out of the embrace, clearly seeing no need for tearfulness or sentimentality. "Okay. Bye, mom." She slid off her chair and disappeared into the bathroom.

"She'll be fine," Lucas said drily, seeing Cuddy's tear-blurred look.

"I know! That's the problem." It didn't improve Cuddy's self-confidence as a mother to know that Lucas was, for all practical purposes, the better parent. He was relaxed and hardly ever got riled by Rachel's antics, whereas Cuddy had a tendency to be strict and perfectionist, often causing more stress than the occasion warranted. Yes, with Lucas and her mother around, Rachel would be fine. She gave Lucas a perfunctory farewell kiss and left the house with her suitcase. At the door it occurred to her that the kiss had been more of a 'See you this evening' snog than an 'I'll miss you terribly the coming ten days' kiss. She hesitated, but then she decided that she simply didn't care.

* * *

Cuddy ran Wilson down in the cafeteria, where he was having lunch with House. She had seen them head that way and had decided to kill two birds with one stone, but had given them a handicap of ten minutes to get their blood sugar levels up. She hoped their mood would be correspondingly mellowed as she descended on them.

"Hello, James! Hello, House!" she greeted them. She and Wilson had switched to first names after Cuddy's marriage to Lucas.

"Hey, Lisa. More last-minute instructions?" Wilson was in charge of the hospital during her absence and not looking forward to it. House nodded a silent greeting and, taking his reading glasses out, reached out for the two case files that she proffered him.

"No. Actually, I want to ask you a favour," Cuddy came straight to the point as she slipped into the chair opposite Wilson. "I need a babysitter for today and tomorrow. Lucas is working those nights and my mother can't make it until the day after tomorrow at the earliest. My regular babysitter isn't taking her phone."

"No problem," Wilson said easily.

House looked up and gave Wilson rather a dirty look. Then he turned his attention to Cuddy. "You're going somewhere?"

"House, do you ever read staff emails?" Cuddy said exasperatedly. "No. Why did I ask," she added rhetorically.

"Emails with headers containing 'staff', 'memo', 'urgent' or 'very urgent' are automatically moved to the spam folder," House confirmed, grinning. "The rest are pre-sorted by my team. Headers such as 'new porn release' get a high priority."

"I'll keep that in mind the next time I send a round email to all my staff," Cuddy said drily.

"So where are you going?"

"READ YOUR EMAILS," Cuddy retorted. She returned her attention to Wilson. "I'll tell the school that you're picking Rachel up, then. Can you make it by 4 o'clock or should she attend the afterschool club?"

"I can make it by ..."

House interrupted him, eyeing Cuddy narrowly. "Overseas. Europe or Asia? You're going straight to the airport from here, so I'd say Europe." He returned his attention to the case files.

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "I'm not even going to ask!" she said.

"Fine, I will," Wilson said. "Can't stand the suspense. House, how did you ..."

House didn't lift his gaze from the case files. "She's wearing her non-crease, non-wrinkle, survive-all-flights business suit and light don't-you-dare-get-smudged make-up, so she's clearly going on a longer flight. Europe, because if she leaves this afternoon or early evening, she'll be in time for the opening of the conference tomorrow at, say 10 am. If the conference were in Asia, she'd be leaving here in the morning." He made as if to hand one of the files back to Cuddy. "I'll take the boy," he said.

"You're taking both cases," Cuddy said briskly.

"I never take two cases at the same time," House objected.

"You are now."

"I am NOT. You know men can't multitask," House said with finality, rising from his chair.

"Whom do you want to tell that they're going to die, because you can't multitask? The fifteen-year-old who is oozing blood from every pore or the thirty-two-year-old mother of three with a failing liver. Because their attending physicians have assured me that both have less than forty-eight hours if they aren't diagnosed!" Cuddy stood too, staring him down.

"Telling them that they're dying isn't _my_ job, if they aren't my patients. If you've taken over from their attending, then it's _your_ job. Or wait, leave it till this evening, and then it's Wilson's job. He's good at that sort of thing." House made as if to brush past Cuddy.

"Fine," Cuddy said with steel in her tone. "James, any potentially risky invasive measure or anything that's outrageously expensive needs to be countersigned by you – and by Dr. Bhattacharya."

"Aw, woman, you can't do that!" House practically yelled. Heads turned in their direction. "You can't expect me to run all over the hospital, first to Wilson and then to Bhattacharya, and convince that old goat that I need to do a biopsy, and save patients at the same time! She hates my guts!"

"I wonder why? If you're only doing _one_ patient, you have the time. Send someone from your team, if you don't want to go yourself." Cuddy remained adamant.

"Don't you trust Wilson?" House whined. "Hey, Wilson, she expects you to run the hospital for her, but she doesn't trust you to make the right decisions! What kind of a doormat are you, to put up with that!"

"Keep me out of this," Wilson said, raising his hands.

House picked up the second case file in silence. "You can have a second whiteboard, the one in the conference room, while I'm gone," Cuddy said sweetly to his back. "For the second patient." She raised a hand as if to pat his arm, but changed her mind at the last moment and dropped it again.

"What about a second head?" House grumbled as he departed.

Cuddy watched him until he disappeared. Looking back at Wilson, she found him mustering her with open curiosity. "It's no fun when he doesn't put up a proper fight," she said pensively. "He buckled much too quickly over that second case."

"Well, it was quite a bit of pressure on him, what with both of them being at death's door," Wilson noted.

"Oh, rubbish. The woman has a few days to go, and I'm sure House realized that from the information in the files. He didn't feel like a real fight, I guess. He never does nowadays, does he?" She sighed. It was a rhetorical question – Wilson wouldn't discuss House with her, and she really couldn't blame him.

There was a moment of silence, before Wilson picked up the conversation again. "So, four o'clock at Rachel's school?"

"Yes. Thanks, James."

"Is it okay if House comes over to your place while I'm babysitting? We were planning on watching a hockey game together on TV tomorrow night, and I guess I just ditched him," Wilson asked tentatively.

"Oh, was that why he was so cheesed off at you?" Cuddy replied, amused. "Of course he can. You aren't likely to trash my furniture, are you?"

"I just thought Lucas mightn't like it if he comes back and sees House enthroned on his sofa," Wilson remarked.

"Oh, Lucas doesn't dislike House. It's House who dislikes Lucas," Cuddy pointed out, "and me."

"He doesn't dislike you," Wilson objected. She looked sceptical, so he added, "Really, Lisa. He's okay with both of you. Hey, it's been _years_ now!"

"He may have no feelings left for me – I know he's been seeing Stacy – but that doesn't mean he's forgiven me. You know how vindictive he can be. He hardly greets me and when he does, he calls me 'Dr. Douglas' with the teensiest of undertones. One can hardly hear it, one certainly can't call him on it, but it's there."

"He calls you 'Dr. Douglas' because he doesn't know what else to call you. We talked about it when you got married. He can't call you 'Cuddy' because then you'd assume he doesn't accept your marriage. Unlike me, he never called you 'Lisa' before, and he said he wasn't going to start just when your relationship had reached rock bottom, and calling you 'Douglas' in analogy to 'Cuddy' is, pardon me, plain ludicrous. Mostly he avoids calling you anything at all, as far as I can make out. You know, it might actually help if you two just, maybe, talked with each other instead of assuming things about each other?" Wilson sighed in exasperation. Then something struck him. "How do you know he's been seeing Stacy?"

"Stacy told me a long time ago that they were meeting off and on. She still manages my legal affairs, so we're in contact," Cuddy answered, now eyeing the table in turn. She had not been happy at the news, for Stacy was still married to Mark and had two children to boot, but it wasn't her job to talk to Stacy about morals and marriage, much less to House. If it stirred any other feelings in her than outrage at the implied adultery and anxiety at what any complications in the relationship might do to her star physician, she chose not to admit that to anyone, not even to herself.

Wilson harrumphed, and Cuddy looked up in surprise. "Hasn't he?" she inquired, wondering at her own curiosity. It really was none of her business and she was not doing herself a favour by showing interest in front of Wilson. Who knew what he'd tell House and what inferences House would draw out of that?

"Look, don't believe ... House is ... oh god, I shouldn't talk ... just ask House, will you?" Wilson stuttered, looking like a cornered animal. "It's ... complicated and he doesn't tell me much, anyway. And he'd murder me if I told you anything about him at all." And Cuddy had to be satisfied with that.

* * *

By the time Cuddy reached London early the next morning she was tired, but in vacation mood. Ten days with no responsibility either for the hospital or for Rachel were an unbounded luxury, and she'd be foolish not to enjoy it. By evening, however, she was getting slightly itchy, although she realized it was more her need to be in control than actual worry about whether Rachel or the hospital were okay. The advantage of having Wilson to babysit was that she could get information on the hospital without seeming to check on him. She phoned home just before midnight London time, which enabled her to catch Rachel just before her bedtime. Rachel was as cheerful as she had been the morning she had left, chatting happily of her two days in school, soccer training and her grandmother's arrival the next day. Cuddy then asked to speak to Wilson.

"Everything okay?" she asked, not really expecting anything outside the norm.

"Umm, yes," Wilson replied. "We're fine, and your mother phoned to say she'll be here tomorrow evening. The hospital hasn't burnt down either."

"Is House behaving?"

"Oh, yes. I told him he couldn't come over for the hockey game unless I can give you a clean report this evening, so he was absolutely angelic."

Cuddy couldn't quite believe that, but she let it pass. "Did Lucas turn up in time for you to leave for the hospital this morning?" This, too, was not really a question, for in the past four years of their marriage Cuddy had never known him not to turn up in time to take Rachel.

There was a short silence before Wilson answered, "Well, he called to say there was a problem, so I took Rachel to school and then went on to the hospital. But it was okay, really, Lisa. The hospital survived the 90 minutes just fine without me. You should try it too sometime!"

Cuddy suddenly realized how tired she was after a night in the airplane and a full day at the conference. She tried to concentrate on what Wilson had just said. "Lucas didn't turn up this morning?"

"Umm, no, like I said, there was a problem. But he phoned well in time, Lisa," Wilson prevaricated.

"What problem?"

"It seems he had some sort of run-in with the police. His what-does-one-call-them, observation victim or whatever, must have got wised up and called them."

This was bad news. It was a pre-requisite for PIs to stay on good terms with the police, and so far Lucas had always cultivated his contacts with various police stations of the area with great care. Normally an observation would not be likely to get him into any trouble at all – a mild slap on the wrist was as far as the police were likely to go, unless ... unless what?

"I don't get it," Cuddy said tiredly.

"I don't really know much either. He was phoning from New York, where he was apparently doing the observation, and he said he'd contact Stacy if there was any further problem. I'm sure it'll be all right."

Cuddy hoped so too.

When she phoned the next evening, her mother answered the phone. After the first polite enquiries she asked after Lucas.

"Oh dear, you'd better talk to Dr. Wilson about that. He's been managing the matter from this end," her mother said vaguely.

Cuddy's heart sank somewhere close to her intestines as Wilson took the phone.

"James, what is going on?" she practically yelled into the phone.

"Wait. I've got to go into another room," Wilson said _sotto voce_. There was the sound of Wilson moving around the house. Then he said carefully, "It seems Lucas has been arrested and there are charges against him. Stacy is onto it, but she hasn't been able to bail him out as yet."

"Look, phone Stacy, or no, I'll phone her myself. If she forwards the money ..." Cuddy was thinking frantically. "It can't take that much to bail him out if he's been charged with, what, trespassing, stalking, violating someone's private sphere?" Wilson was silent at the other end, an ominous silence that Cuddy could sense over the line. "What _has_ he been charged with?"

Wilson sighed audibly at the other end before he answered, "You'll find out anyway: possession of narcotics in larger quantities, dealing with narcotics, selling narcotics to minors ..."

"That is completely ridiculous!" Cuddy snorted. "Lucas and drugs! What does he say?" Lucas was not averse to alcohol, but he was extremely puritanical as far as recreational drug use went.

"From what Stacy says, he was set up. He says he didn't have anything to do with _drugs_ and I believe that. But she also says it's going to be difficult to prove," Wilson replied. "Lisa, it's all a bit of a mess. Do you think you could get an early flight back?"

"Yes, yes of course," Cuddy answered automatically. She had noticed the strange emphasis that Wilson had given the word 'drugs'. "Anything else?"

"Some offense under Section 130-something of the New York penal code," Wilson mumbled. Cuddy knew him well enough to sense that this was no casual piece of information that he was just adding in order to complete the sum total of Lucas's imaginary offenses.

"Section 130? What's that?" she dug remorselessly.

"Look, I'm no lawyer, you'll have to ask Stacy for that. Section 130 has got all sorts of stuff in it," Wilson evaded.

"James! You're deflecting! If you like, I'll google it – I do have internet access here! Will you please, please tell me what you're trying to hide so desperately?" Cuddy begged, wondering what could be worse than Lucas being charged with dealing with narcotics.

"Sexual intercourse with a sixteen-year-old," Wilson said reluctantly.

Cuddy breathed out. "Is that an offense?"

"It _is_ in New York. In fact, it's a Class E felony according to Stacy, carrying a sentence of at least one year," he said heavily.

"My goodness, he got set up, so there'll be absolutely nothing to support that charge. He'll hardly get convicted on _that_ one. The narcotics charges seem by far the more serious ones," Cuddy argued.

"Lisa," Wilson's voice was serious. "It's the only charge he _hasn't_ denied."


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's note:** I see the need for some clarification after my last chapter got reviews to the tune of, 'I'm glad you're bashing Lucas. He's a hateful chap, just the type to screw minors.'

1. I'm just the author. The story in no way reflects my opinions or moral views. I needed Lucas to do something that's considered morally reprehensible nowadays to fit the story line, but if P&P went differently, he might have been all sweet and supporting. Then I'd just have killed him off in a tragic car accident, and that would have suited me fine, too.

2. Since many seem to be equating my story with some sort of judgment on Lucas, here's my personal opinion on what he's done in my story and some moral reflections on House.  
(a) I don't believe in black and white. People aren't wholly good or bad, they are just more or less confused in their moral judgment.  
(b) In my story Lucas 'jumps' a sixteen-year-old, which is a felony in NY. If she were seventeen, then that would be perfectly okay with the state of NY. If a daughter of mine were 'jumped' by a man more than double her age, I wouldn't care if she were fifteen, sixteen, or eighteen; I'd want to take a knife and ram it into his guts.  
(c) Let's do away with double moral standards. I recently viewed the House episode with the teen stalker. Essentially, the misdemeanour was the same one. House would have been perfectly happy to sleep with his stalker and was only deterred by the trouble he anticipated due to her being a minor, not by any moral qualms about messing around with someone less than half his age and well under twenty to boot. He had every intention of jumping her the moment she turned eighteen, had he not cured her of her infatuation before she did so. I was sickened by his behaviour when I watched the episode (see reasoning about potential own daughters under (b)), which was doubtless the intention of the scriptwriters. They let House do absolutely contemptible things to make the viewers gape in horror, only to pull them around again into a grudging liking for him. That's what the charm of the series consisted of, at least during the first three seasons. So, anyone who wants to flame Lucas, let's all flame House instead. (And before anyone flames me for criticizing House, let's all remember that House is a fictional character. He doesn't exist, so I'm not committing libel by possibly misinterpreting his actions as depicted in the series!)

End of rant.

**

* * *

Chapter 14**

* * *

'At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as, upon the whole, I hope will give satisfaction.' [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 49]

_**

* * *

The same**_

Wilson picked Cuddy up from the airport. She had managed to get a flight to Philadelphia via Frankfurt the next morning, but with the delay in changing planes it was now almost twenty-four hours after she had spoken with Wilson. She hadn't slept much, had cried a lot and knew that she looked a mess, but she was beyond caring. When Wilson pulled her into hug, she burst into tears again, and she was grateful that he didn't say anything, but just held her until her tears subsided. It surprised her a little that she should feel comforted by someone whose philandering had led to at least two of his three divorces, but perhaps Wilson was the best judge of what went on in a person who was confronted with his or her partner's unfaithfulness. He picked up her suitcase and they walked to his car in silence.

When they got to the car, Cuddy spotted, much to her dismay, House leaning against it smoking a cigarette. Seeing them approach the car, he stubbed it out and walked round the car to open the boot.

"Does he know?" Cuddy whispered to Wilson.

"Afraid so," Wilson said apologetically. "He was at your place with me watching the hockey game when Stacy phoned to say she couldn't bail Lucas out. He's been quite useful, honestly. It's been a trifle stressful – we couldn't keep the whole truth from your mother and she didn't take it very well - and I also had the hospital to run, so House kind of took over the cooking and babysitting and all that. Besides, House can be discreet, when it really counts." Cuddy knew that. She just wasn't sure whether she could take House's comments in her present state of mind.

House gave Cuddy a nod as he took the suitcase from Wilson. Wilson opened the front passenger door for Cuddy, while House heaved himself into the rear of the car. When Wilson pulled out into the evening traffic, Cuddy finally referred to what was in all their minds. "So, can I hear what really happened?"

Wilson sighed. "Here, just let me get on the freeway." As soon as he had eased into the right lane, he cast a quick glance at Cuddy to see what shape she was in. "Okay, this is what I know, and it's probably pretty much the truth. Stacy spoke extensively with Lucas and this is the gist of what happened. Lucas was asked by a client to observe his wife, soon-to-be ex-wife, because they were bound for a nasty custody battle and he wanted something against her. Problem was, there simply wasn't much against her as far as Lucas could make out. Very religious, homemaker for years while the kids were small, working part-time, involved in charities – in short, the perfect mom. After raiding her apartment and observing her on and off for a month he came to the conclusion that she wasn't doing anything potentially damaging, such as working as a prostitute or taking drugs or boozing. Lucas's client indicated that she might have got violent a few times when the kids were younger, but of course his evidence won't count for anything unless the kids are prepared to support his statements. So Lucas decided to approach the oldest child, a girl of sixteen, who isn't affected by the custody battle because she can make her own choice. If she were prepared to testify that her mother hit her or her siblings, then the father stands a good chance of gaining custody for the two younger kids."

"The sixteen-year-old, that's the one?" Cuddy asked obscurely, but Wilson understood her.

He reached over to touch her shoulder gently before he continued, "Yeah. Lucas figured he'd go best if he pretended to meet her by chance, get her to sob on his shoulder about her parents' divorce and trick her into divulging her mother's dirty secrets. So he crashed a party he knew she was attending. What exactly happened there is unclear, but the police got wind of the party and raided it, found an amazing quantity of amphetamines and were not happy. Other party guests said that Lucas's client's daughter had supplied the stuff, whereupon _she_ said she got it from Lucas and that he'd made her have sex under the influence of drugs. Stacy thinks that the girl raided her father's surgery for the drugs – he's a physician – and that the mother might have sent in the police in order to put her husband under pressure. Or possibly her daughter. Possibly the police got a tip from somewhere quite different, but the girl is quite happy to sacrifice Lucas to get herself out of a tight spot."

"The drugs part seems clear to me, but how does it help the girl to say Lucas forced her to have sex with him?" Cuddy asked.

Wilson swallowed before he answered, "They were caught in the act by the police, and the mother - did I mention religious fanatic? - kicked up a fuss at the police station when she came in to pick up her daughter. Look, Lisa, you don't want to dwell on that! Just try to focus on the issue at hand."

"And that would be?" Cuddy enquired as sarcastically as she could through the lump in her throat. "My husband was caught fucking a sixteen-year-old! I think that is a major issue, even if you think it is a minor ripple in my everyday life!"

"Lisa, that's not what I meant!" He knew she was willfully misunderstanding him, but there were two separate issues involved. One was the Douglases' disintegrating marriage, the other Lucas's future, in freedom or otherwise. "Lucas faces a major prison sentence if he can't disprove the narcotics charges. He was way older than the other people at the party, his tox screen was clean, and no one knew him, so the police figured he must be a drug dealer. He's facing ten years! He's been honest about the sex, you yourself say he doesn't do drugs, and I don't see him as a drug dealer either, so he doesn't deserve that! Castrate him, if it makes you feel better, but don't let him spend the rest of his life behind bars for something he didn't do."

"I think it would actually make me feel better if he spent the rest of his life behind bars," Cuddy muttered vindictively. Anger was so much better than hurt or sorrow. Anger stopped her heart from feeling big and heavy, it prevented her from succumbing to that leaden cloud that threatened to obfuscate her mind, and it gave her a purpose for the coming days and weeks.

"_You_, yes," Wilson assented, "but what about Rachel?"

House, who had been uncharacteristically silent all the while, suddenly offered from the back seat, "If he'd done a sixty-year-old, you should feel insulted. But there's no need to take it personally when he does a sixteen-year-old."

Cuddy swung round to face him, her eyebrows racing to meet her hairline. "Pardon me?"

"It's a strategy that ensures a maximum amount of offspring. A male with a partner who is not actively breeding any more is automatically on the look-out for a sexual partner who can still have offspring. You're forty-four and practically out of the running, so Lucas's instincts tell him to look for a younger female," House elucidated.

Cuddy practically choked with indignation as she put together a rejoinder. "Is this some sort of male justification for fornication? 'My wife is in menopause, so I can do any young girl I like'? God, what a chauvinist pig you are!"

"I'm not justifying his behaviour. I'm trying to say that what he did is no reflection on _you_. Had he 'fornicated' with someone your age or older, he'd have been slapping you in the face. As it is, it was just his instincts running wild and telling him he had better procreate while he has the chance."

"Look, I know you have this thing for seventeen-year-olds, but …"

House snorted. "Oh, bringing that one up, are we? My stalker and I have no bearing on this case. And just for the annals, I did NOT sleep with her."

"Only because _I_ protected you and your career and chased her off the hospital premises. _You_ were drooling all over her," Cuddy retorted.

"My career? _You_ were plain green-eyed jealous and worried that if you didn't stake your claims, she'd still be around when she turned eighteen," House taunted. "You couldn't have thought I'd be foolish enough to screw a patient who's a minor. That's more a 'Wilson' kind of thing. Believe me, I'm extremely discreet in my sexual affairs. I never even cuddle Wilson in public, do I, Jimmy?" He leered into the rear mirror. Wilson met his eyes there and shook his head at him in exasperation.

That put Cuddy in mind of another matter that had been nagging at her ever since they had moved together into that loft conversion of theirs. She had never as much as mentioned it to either of them, but it did have her worried. "Do you boys know of the rumours about you at the hospital?" she asked.

"Course I do," House responded, "seeing as I'm the one who lances most of them. It's so much fun patting the male colleagues on the shoulder and watching them flinch. And why deny our love?" he added dramatically.

"Idiot," Wilson muttered.

"I know you couldn't care less about your reputation, House, but Wilson here might just see things differently," Cuddy admonished.

"You don't believe the rumours," Wilson concluded.

"No, I don't," she said quietly and truthfully. She was not sure about Wilson's heterosexuality, but then, it was debatable whether Wilson was actually sure about himself. House, however, was so straight one could use him as a plumbing line. It was a pity, she had thought often in recent times, for it would have spared everyone, especially Wilson's ex-wives, a lot of bother if House and Wilson could have a relationship that went beyond their friendship. Their friendship had put a strain on Wilson's marriages, and she didn't doubt that both men subconsciously judged any relationship they contemplated entering into, on how it compared to what they had with each other. That could only be detrimental to a relationship with a woman, and it was probably one of the reasons why neither had a girl-friend at the moment. If one didn't count Stacy, she added mentally. It was, however, just like House not to notice that Wilson might feel more deeply (or perhaps one should say 'sexually') than he did, or to notice, but to push that knowledge into some compartment labeled 'Feelings I don't want to acknowledge or deal with' and to poke fun at the whole matter. Hadn't he done the same with _their_ non-relationship before his break-down? She wanted to take hold of House, shake him and yell at him, 'You selfish idiot, don't you see that you're keeping Wilson from moving on and forming a meaningful relationship with someone else? You always have to trap people with your little games, even if you don't want them. You love the power you have over them, the knowledge that although they can't have you, they still want you enough not to want anyone else!' But of course it wasn't like that, really. He'd been a bastard to her, but he actually needed Wilson and Wilson's company, perhaps more so than Wilson needed him. She had often thanked Wilson inwardly for moving in with House – had he not, House would surely have returned to his addiction long ago. House woke her from her musings.

"Aw, do your conservative old donors object? Are they threatening to take their wonderful money to some enemy hospital because you've got a bunch of queers who are actually living in sin?" House surmised. "Just get their attention back on you by lowering your neckline a bit more. Or no, bad idea, it'll reach your waist soon. What else could you do to hook the old geezers in? How about a pole in your office and you in a sexy schoolgirl costume? I see it before me: a red checked mini skirt, a tantalizing belly-free white blouse, white stockings, your hair, let me see, in two pony tails, your body curved around the pole …" He leaned back, leering.

"House, I am NOT interested in what goes on in that dirty mind of yours and I'll thank you to keep its contents to yourself! Why don't you go to some stripper joint, instead of harassing me or other innocent females?"

"You don't pay me enough for me to become a regular there," he whined "It's much cheaper doing it in my head." Luckily, his cell phone rang before he could become more explicit. He talked into it for a moment, then he said to Wilson, "Drop me off at the hospital, will you?" Wilson nodded – it was on their way anyway.

As Wilson pulled away from the hospital again, Cuddy turned on Wilson, complaining, "My goodness, why did you have to bring him along? He was obnoxious!" It suddenly struck her that House had been uncharacteristically abrasive, uncharacteristic for their present relationship, and that Wilson had not made the slightest attempt to stop him. The reason suddenly dawned on her. "James, you and House are a pair of manipulative…" She couldn't think of a term.

"Bastards," Wilson supplied helpfully.

"Thank you. He came along to distract me with his nonsense, didn't he? To get me so angry with him that I wouldn't brood," she said with a mixture of indignation and amusement.

"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Wilson asked, as she smiled at him somewhat shakily.

"Well, yes," she admitted, but then she scowled darkly. "But he can be a bit creepy at times. I swear he was really picturing me in some pseudo-schoolgirl outfit wrapping myself around a pole."

* * *

Stacy insisted that Lucas be bailed out, saying that raising bail would show that his family and friends had faith in him, so Cuddy plundered her assets and her mother's to boot. However, she refused to go to New York to see him and she didn't want him back in Princeton either. She didn't know where he was and she honestly didn't care. Rachel had been told that he wasn't well and was staying with Aunt Stacy till he recovered. Whether she believed the tale or not was unclear, but since Lucas phoned her regularly (at times when Cuddy was out of the house) she didn't complain very much.

Two days after Lucas's release on bail, Stacy phoned Cuddy. "Good news, Lisa. All charges against Lucas have been dropped."

"What?" Cuddy was genuinely surprised and honestly relieved. Now that she had cooled down somewhat, she too agreed that going to jail on a trumped-up narcotics charge was infinitely worse than anything Lucas deserved. He had hurt her feelings, but he wasn't a dangerous criminal, and if he needed punishing, she felt fit enough to take that into her own hands, possibly with the aid of a large pair of garden secateurs. "How come?"

"Megan, the girl who accused Lucas of supplying her with the amphetamines, has backtracked, admitting that the amphetamines were hers. Her parents have also dropped the charge of sexual intercourse with a minor, so the state attorney won't prosecute that either. He'd find it difficult to prove that Lucas knew the girl was only sixteen. She looks like twenty-four." Stacy said in tones that indicated deep satisfaction.

"Wow, Stacy," Cuddy said in admiration. "How on earth did you get the parents and the girl to cave in so completely?"

"Well, it was Megan's word against Lucas's, and the fact is that the other party guests - Megan's close friends, who are covering her, excepted - all state that they got the pills from her, not from Lucas. No one really believed that Lucas had to drug the girl to have sex with her, and the parents saw that a charge under Section 130.25 with the defense bringing up the girl's previous sex life in court would not be in her favour at all."

Cuddy meditated this information for a moment. She might not be a lawyer, but even a lay person with less acumen than Cuddy could see the flaw in the logic of the proceedings. "I don't get it," Cuddy probed, somewhat puzzled. "Why should she, why should her parents do that? She's got a fifty-fifty chance of getting out of this unscathed if she lets the state attorney drag Lucas into court, but admitting to drug possession and dealing gives her no chance whatsoever. And didn't you mention, no, Wilson did, that she probably got the pills from her father's surgery? He'll be implicated, too."

"Actually," Stacy said carefully, "it _seems_ that she was in possession of the amphetamines quite legally. They were prescribed against ADHS, apparently, which was diagnosed recently. That came to light when we put a bit of pressure on the father regarding the safety precautions in his surgery." There was an undertone to Stacy's voice that spoke volumes on what she thought of that story.

"What, prescribed by her father? And in the quantities that Lucas was charged for trafficking with? That's preposterous and it's professional suicide for her father!"

"No, it isn't because the prescribing physician is not her father. He's no relation at all." Stacy's tone indicated disapproval and something else that Cuddy couldn't quite place. Frustration? "Furthermore, she says that she didn't _sell_ the pills to anyone. She says she just left her handbag standing around and people helped themselves without her knowledge. That is at least partly true: she wasn't selling the pills, she was distributing them. And she was clever enough to do it as described; she placed her handbag on the table and said, 'Hey, folks, help yourselves,' or something to that effect. It's all a bit sad, really. Confused child trying to buy friendship with drugs."

Cuddy snorted. "My heart melts! The prescribing physician must be a _very_ close friend of the family to take such a risk. Enough amphetamines to keep half a battalion on its legs! If anyone looks into that, he has as good as lost his license." She wondered casually how anyone could endanger his or her career to such an extent in order to help out a friend who was clearly in the wrong. There were, however, more pressing issues.

"Stacy, I want a divorce."

"Yes, I've been expecting that. I don't do family law, but I know someone who does. I'll give you her number. But Lisa, you need to talk to Lucas," Stacy advised.

"No, I don't. I just want a quick divorce. He can't seriously want to contest, or whatever it is people do to make trouble, can he?" Cuddy felt her blood pressure rising, a condition she had been able to avoid so far by pushing the whole issue to the back of her brain.

"Lisa, he won't contest the divorce, but he does want joint legal custody for Rachel and visiting rights. If you don't settle that in an amicable manner, then the divorce proceedings can become long and bloody. If both of you can agree on something, you can be divorced within six weeks."

"That man sleeps with a sixteen-year-old, and now he wants legal custody of my child? That's ludicrous!" Cuddy stormed. "He won't get through with that in court!"

"Maybe not, but, Lisa, this is not about you, this is about Rachel. It is regrettable that Lucas cheated on you, it is humiliating and in bad taste that he did so with a sixteen-year-old, and you have every right to be hurt and angry. But that does not make him a bad father. Or a pedophile. A divorce with a custody battle can be very hard on kids."

"Hang on, you said it was a felony. That makes him a bad father _and_ a pedophile. He's just lucky that no one is prosecuting him," Cuddy argued.

"Lisa, in _New York_ it's a felony if the girl is under seventeen; in _New Jersey_, where the age limit is sixteen, it's not even an offense of any sort. If this had happened in New Jersey, chances are that you would never have got to know about his sexual involvement with the girl – we'd only have had to deal with the drug trafficking issue," said Stacy, all logic and rationality. "Lucas is feeling guilty and is pretty amenable in all respects at the moment. And though he _might_ not get legal custody, he'll definitely get visiting rights. Think it over, talk to your divorce lawyer about this, but if you want a quick and clean divorce and the best for Rachel, then come to an agreement with Lucas before the proceedings start."

* * *

'Mrs. Bennet, before you take any, or all of these houses for your son and daughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into _one_ house in the neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the impudence of either by admitting them to Longbourn.' [Pride and Prejudice, Ch. 50]

* * *

**Further Author's Note:** I'm not a lawyer, but I checked up on the issue of sex with minors in New York and New Jersey. I also checked up divorce law in New Jersey, and it seems that if one does not contest the divorce, gets all issues settled outside court and is prepared to lie a bit regarding how long one has had major differences, one can get a divorce fairly quickly. I did not bother to check what the deal is with drug-related offenses, coz those are probably much too complicated for lay people like me. I'm taking out all the artistic license I can get on that issue!


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

* * *

Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless. […] Lydia led voluntarily to subjects, which her sisters would not have alluded to for the world. [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 51]

_**

* * *

The same**_

Lucas was to come around one afternoon before Rachel returned from school, pack his things and discuss visiting rights with Cuddy. Cuddy's mother, who had offered to stay until 'things had settled', as she put it, and Cuddy had found child care arrangements for Rachel, was to pick Rachel up from school and keep her out of the way until Cuddy and Lucas had finished their talk. Cuddy had taken the day off work and had spent the morning sorting out Lucas's belongings and packing them into boxes, an activity that had not served to improve her mood. It had taken all of her proverbial self-control _not_ to remove mementos of their marriage from the living-room and the kitchen, but it was hard enough as it was to explain what was going on to Rachel without traumatizing her completely by deleting all evidence of Lucas from her life. So their marriage photo still graced the mantelpiece above the fireplace and an assortment of pictures showing Lucas with her and/or Rachel were stuck all over the refrigerator.

Cuddy's mother, who liked Lucas, had not been happy at the obvious signs that things would not be okay again. Watching Cuddy pack Lucas's things, she had asked her to reconsider.

"Men are … a little different, my dear. He was very wrong to do that, to be sure, but it doesn't really mean anything. In a few years you'll look back on it and say, 'It was a rough spot in our marriage, but we survived it.' And think of Rachel! He's so fond of her, despite the fact that she isn't his child at all. You don't get many men like that. It'll be tough on her, growing up without a father. I've read that children with single parents don't do as well academically as children from intact families …"

Cuddy lost it then. "Well, that'll be better for Rachel, won't it? Didn't you always say that my academic success spoilt me for relationships?" When she saw the hurt look on her mother's face she backed down. Her mother might see things differently if she knew that Lucas had committed adultery with a minor, but Cuddy preferred not to burden her with that knowledge. "Mom, why don't you go to the shopping mall while I finish this?"

She didn't tell her mother, but she _had_ been reconsidering. She was forty-four years old and the relationship with Lucas had been the longest she had ever had. She doubted that anyone but Lucas could have put up with her for so long; he'd once complained that the hospital was like a lover: exhilarating, demanding, addictive. He'd cheated on her, but on some meta-level she had cheated just as much. If Lucas came by now and picked up his things without attempting to get her to relent and rethink the divorce, then their marriage was effectively over.

There were three hindrances to reconciliation, the first being that she'd have to be prepared to change, the second that she still wasn't sure how she felt about his sleeping with a minor. It was strange that an act that was a felony in one state should be absolutely legal in another. Sixteen or eighteen years of age, what Lucas had done was in bad taste, no matter what House's 'survival of the species' logic had to say on the topic, and a year or two either way made little difference. It was very difficult to separate the adultery issue from the issue of the girl's age, and Cuddy was not sure whether she would ever be able to do so.

The third hindrance was that so far, Lucas had evinced no interest whatsoever in being reconciled. He was the one who had erred; therefore, it was up to him to take the first steps to patching up their marriage. If asked about the state of their marriage prior to his arrest, Cuddy would have answered that the first romance might have blown over, but that they had a warm and steady relationship. And from her point of view that was the truth. She enjoyed having someone to come home to, regular sex without the stress of dating and waking up the next morning in the company of someone who was practically a stranger, meals in company, and weekends that were not so boring that she'd look forward to work on Monday morning. She enjoyed the squabbles over the remote control, sprinting in the mornings to be the first in the bathroom, debating the relative merits of pizza versus lasagna, arguing over whose turn it was to take the garbage out. For her, fidelity had never been an issue. True, the one or other colleague at a conference made her pulse beat slightly more rapidly, and she would always have a soft spot for House, but she had never even remotely been tempted to take things a step further.

If pressed, she might have admitted that their conversations centred largely on Rachel and that she couldn't remember the last time they had had a real date or an outing that did not include Rachel. She would, however, have insisted that many married couples with small children had no private life worth mentioning. She remembered Lucas suggesting once or twice that they have a date again, but she had always pleaded tiredness or other commitments. Now, looking back, she tried to find signs that Lucas might not have been as contented as she was: he had been less loquacious lately, he had worked more, and his readiness to pitch in when she had to work overtime had decreased. And examining herself, she had to admit that she had been grumpier of late, and there had been a few squabbles. Nothing major, but perhaps Lucas was of a different opinion – he hated squabbling and yelling. Come to think of it, the squabbles had often developed into arguments on whether her friends and colleagues accepted him. This had always been an issue: was he her boy-toy, a dumb PI being kept as a glorified babysitter by PPTH's successful Dean of Medicine? He interpreted her lack of interest in social events as embarrassment at being seen with him in public. In the beginning of their relationship she had spent a lot of time reassuring him – she had taken his name when they got married to make a statement- , but lately she had tired of the same endless discussions and had let his doubts hang in the air. All in all, there were indications that Lucas might not have had as rose-coloured a view of their marriage as she did. She cursed herself for not noticing it earlier, for ignoring warning signs and for denying her marriage the priority it should have had in her life.

So far, they had had two conversations on the telephone. Cuddy had been advised extensively by her lawyer on how to handle these talks, and they had managed to settle everything pertaining to Rachel satisfactorily. Cuddy had stuck strictly to the script suggested by her lawyer ("Note down open questions beforehand: how often does he take Rachel, when does he take Rachel, where does he take her, when does he bring her back, and so on. Stay away from the past, stay away from the word 'you' as subject of a sentence - that leads to recriminations") and had been surprised at how quickly and objectively they had come to an agreement. Lucas had already taken Rachel twice, picking her up after school and dropping her off at Cuddy's place without entering himself.

Punctually at noon Lucas drove up in a van. Cuddy opened the door and watched him walk up the drive. They stood awkwardly for a moment, then Lucas leaned forward and pecked her on the cheek. Cuddy was more than surprised. Didn't he sense that she mightn't appreciate any body contact after what had passed?

"How about I load up my stuff?" Lucas suggested. She moved aside to let him enter. "Wow, you've packed it all up for me? Gee, thanks. Then I can just carry it into the van. Is there any bulky stuff that needs to go in first? Oh, you've labeled the boxes! That's really thoughtful of you. I've found this place just outside Princeton, just a small apartment, really, but I don't need much space. Furnished and all, and I can move in straight away. Better than prison, I can tell you. Thanks for bailing me out, by the way. Just hold open the door for me, will you?" His chatter continued as he loaded his boxes into the van. "I mean, I have been in jail overnight before, sobering up after a rather horrible night out, but ten days, jeez! And the food, cripes! By the way, did I see food in the kitchen?"

Cuddy managed half a smile at that. Lucas lifted the lids of the containers standing there. "Looks good. Shall we have some?" Cuddy wasn't really feeling hungry, but she nodded and put them into the microwave, while Lucas got plates and cutlery. He was behaving pretty much as though this was still his home, Cuddy thought. One could compare him to a grown-up child moving out of the parental home – slightly woe-begone, but very voluble about his past and future experiences.

"Oh, this is good! Tell your mom from me that she's a great cook!" Cuddy smiled abstractedly, poking around in her food. It was excellent, but she had completely lost whatever appetite she should have had at this time of day. "Wait, your mom didn't cook this," Lucas surmised, regarding the containers with narrowed eyes. He was right, of course, - the containers weren't Cuddy's and her mother was a reasonable cook, but could never have produced ravioli with pasta sauce that had the potential to send people into ecstasy.

"Wilson dropped by with food this morning," Cuddy explained. He had handed the containers to her at the door, stopping by on his way to work and saying that he and House had cooked last night and that he'd thought she might like some.

"Awesome Wilson. A man of hidden talents," Lucas praised. Cuddy didn't think it worth mentioning that the brain behind the pasta was probably House's. Lucas took little notice of her damp spirits; perhaps he thought he might cheer her up, perhaps he thought this was the best way of avoiding awkwardness. Whichever it was, he continued with light-hearted jail reminiscences and Cuddy listened with half an ear. She jerked out of her pensive state at the mention of a name that rang a bell.

"…, but when old Wicklow turned up and pretended not to know me, I got a bit of a shock."

Cuddy shook her head slightly and said, "Sorry, I got lost. Could you repeat that?"

Lucas, whose attention it had not escaped that she wasn't really listening, asked wryly, "From where?"

"I'm not sure. Who's Wicklow?"

"My client, Dr. George Wicklow. Ex-client, actually. Do you know him?"

"Mmm, yes," Cuddy said, ruminating on what Lucas had just told her. George Wicklow of her University of Michigan past was Lucas's client? The world was a small place. "Why did he pretend not to know you?"

"Well, it's rather obvious, isn't it, when one looks at it from his point of view. Problem was, I didn't know his point of view when he first turned up at the police station," Lucas said, cryptically from Cuddy's point of view. Her confusion was written clear all over her face.

"You haven't been listening at all, have you?" Lucas said with the smile that previously used to melt Cuddy's heart and even now sent a pang through it. "When I got arrested, I had no idea that Megan was trying to get me framed for her drugs. Hell, I had no idea that all those pills swimming around at the party came from her, because I crashed it long after it had started. So when the police kept me in overnight I thought to myself, 'Lucas, old boy, your client is coming anyway, and he'll tell the officers that you were acting on his behalf.' He turned up all right, but he told the officers that he had no clue who I was. That gave me a bit of a shock, because I had been banking on him hauling me out of there. It came as even more of a shock when I realized _who_ was framing me for possession of narcotics. I've been in a tight spot before, but so far it's never been a client who tried to get me there. It just goes to show that one should be more careful in the choice of one's clients," he ended cheerfully.

"Hmm," Cuddy said vaguely, not wishing to agree unequivocally to that. In her eyes it went to show that one should be more careful about whom one screwed. "Well," she said, rousing herself, "George Wickow has always been a jerk."

"Yeah, that's what House said too," Lucas assented.

"House?" Cuddy asked mystified.

Lucas looked as though he was mentally biting his tongue and kicking his own backside. "Yeah, he was there when Stacy got the police and Wicklow to drop all charges. I … wasn't supposed to mention it – Stacy will murder me. Look, just forget it, will you?"

"_House_ was there with Stacy and George Wicklow?" Cuddy asked incredulously.

"Not _with_ Wicklow. More like, _despite_ Wicklow. They were at each other's throats right at the state attorney's office, and I thought, 'Hey, they'll never get me out like this. They'll get arrested, too, and we can have a nice threesome here.'" Cuddy was clearly not amused, so Lucas gave up on the comic routine. "He wasn't exactly Mr. Happy-and-Bright, anyway. One would have thought he'd show a bit more sympathy or whatever, but he had me wishing that Wilson had come instead. Talk of a holier-than-thou attitude! And that from the guy with the biggest porn collection in my circle of acquaintances and an intimate knowledge of every hooker in town!"

"I don't think he does sixteen-year-old hookers," Cuddy said, drawing patterns on the table. She had promised herself not to bring Megan up, but it was so close beneath the surface that it had been bound to come out sooner or later.

Lucas wisely ignored the slur on himself and latched onto the superficial content of her message. "That's what he said, too," he muttered. He didn't mention the other point House had not hesitated to bring across when Lucas, defending himself against the accusations in House's stare, had dared to bring up his hookers.

"_Firstly I don't _do_ sixteen-year-olds, hooker or not. Secondly, if I were married to a woman like Lisa Cuddy, I wouldn't be doing anyone else at all, period."_


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

* * *

"[…] your uncle had a most unexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several hours. […] He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil, which had been brought on by himself. If he had _another_ motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him." [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 52]

_**

* * *

Four**__** weeks later**_

Cuddy was slightly confounded by the knowledge that House had been in New York getting Lucas off the hook. He and Lucas certainly weren't best friends, even if one could put them into one room together for short intervals of time without risking major confrontations. She hadn't pursued the matter, however, for lack of other sources of information and a desire to avoid finding out things that would hurt no one but herself: chances were that he'd been there to see Stacy and had simply tagged along to police headquarters. If he didn't have the sense to stay away from Stacy after all the pain he'd been through because of her, then there was nothing she, Cuddy, could do about that.

Besides, whom could she ask? Wilson, an obvious first choice, was very reluctant to talk about House's personal issues, and who could blame him after she had passed his confidences on House's hallucinations on to Lucas? House himself was not an option – he'd probably lie to her as a matter of principle. Besides, he was avoiding her: he did enough clinic hours that it wasn't worth the bother pursuing him for the ones he missed, but not so many that she'd feel obliged to commend his efforts; he sent his team in to get permission for expensive or risky procedures; and he timed his lunch hours to coincide with meetings that she had to attend. The only constant in his behaviour was that complaints against him were piling up on her desk; if the nurses were to be believed, he was in an absolutely foul mood and all set to bring staff and patient complaints back up to the level he had attained before being committed. Asking Stacy was completely out of the question. The last thing Cuddy needed now was Stacy querying in accents of surprise, _"Oh, didn't House mention that we see each other every weekend that he isn't on duty? He gets on so well with the boys – they just adore him!"_ No, the last thing she needed, now that her marriage was in tatters, was House proving that he was less of an emotional mess than she was and quite capable of establishing functioning relationships. Especially if that relationship was with someone other than her. _Great, Lisa_, she told herself. _You're just like him, aren't you? Didn't want him yourself, but you can't bear seeing him with another person_. Well, her _emotions_ needn't be mature; it would have to suffice that she manage to exhibit mature _behaviour_, so she pushed the thought of House's involvement with Stacy back into that cobwebby corner of her mind where it belonged and decided not to brood about his presence at Lucas's release. It stayed put there the next few weeks, because all active and passive brain reserves were taken up by the divorce proceedings and Rachel's reactions to the upheaval in her life.

Her curiosity about his interference, however, was satisfied soon enough, and in a manner that drove all thoughts of lady-like discretion right out of her mind. She'd had a rough weekend that had involved a major scene with Rachel. She, Cuddy, being overwrought and exhausted, had overreacted to a mishap involving a glass of milk, upon which Rachel had retreated to her room, screaming that she hated her mom and that she wanted to stay with her dad. Cuddy, always sensitive about her abilities as a mother, had spent half the night in tears, and thus she was not in the best of moods when the hospital's legal aide, Mike Brandon, dropped into her office on Monday morning waving an official-looking letter under her nose.

"This came in this morning, Dr. Douglas. I thought you might like to take a look at it," he said tersely.

"What is it?" Cuddy said, looking up from her desk in distaste. She hated having to read papers that she paid the legal department to deal with for her, she hated having things waved under her nose, and she hated it when she wasn't given some concise explanation of what she was about to deal with. Brandon knew that. If he still acted as he did, then whatever it was, it had to be so bad that he'd rather not be the bearer of grave tidings. She skimmed over the paper that bore the letterhead of the Office of Professional Misconduct, a body that dealt with complaints against physicians, and the first name she hit upon was 'Megan Wicklow'. Her heart sank.

"Is Megan Wicklow one of our patients?" she asked, fearing the answer. If she was, and the girl had been throwing amphetamines around as though they were confetti, then the hospital might be in for an expensive lawsuit. Strange that Stacy hadn't warned her.

"No," Brandon replied.

"Then why are we being bothered with this?" Cuddy asked, waving the paper right back at him.

"Read the other side, Dr. Douglas," he rejoined, looking frankly worried.

Cuddy turned the paper over with foreboding and quickly found what had Brandon's knickers all in a twist.

_Prescribing physician: Dr. Gregory House_

"Oh my god!" she whispered, staring at the paper blankly. The name didn't fade or disappear, stare as she might, so finally she looked up at Brandon and said, emphasizing every word, "Okay, explain to me what this is and what it means."

Brandon cleared his throat. "This is an enquiry by the Office of Professional Misconduct in New York. They are looking into medical malpractice in the case of one Megan Wicklow at the behest of the police department. Apparently the girl was caught with a large amount of amphetamines, for which, however, she had valid prescriptions. The prescriptions were issued by Dr. House. The OPM would like to know how it is that PPTH prescribed amphetamines far in excess of medically beneficial doses."

"We didn't. The girl wasn't our patient, you say," Cuddy prevaricated, but she could see where this was going. She tapped the pen she was holding nervously on the letter.

"Which raises a question: why is one of _our_ doctors prescribing her medication, and that in astronomic quantities?" Brandon confirmed.

Cuddy leaned her forehead on one hand, massaging her brows with her fingers. It didn't help her to relax or to think clearly. The sum of her thoughts was, "Oh damn, damn, damn!" which was not very helpful by any standards. "What does Dr. House say?" she asked rhetorically, knowing that whatever House might choose to tell the legal department would be either worthless or potentially incriminating.

"He isn't in the house," Brandon said, making Cuddy wince at the weak pun and frown at the information.

"I'll go find him in a moment," she said. "Chances are that he won't be particularly helpful, so just tell me what'll happen next."

Brandon inhaled deeply and exhaled sharply. Then he said in measured tones, "I take it that we try to protect Dr. House." Again, a purely rhetorical question – they always protected House – but it was part of the ritual between the legal department and the dean of medicine. "Firstly, there's the question of medical malpractice. That is really _his_ problem, not ours."

"Excuse me," Cuddy interrupted, "if he is convicted of malpractice he loses his license, and that is very much our problem."

Brandon looked slightly annoyed. "I am aware of it and I was going to offer a solution to that. He could argue that the prescriptions, according to the data supplied in the letter, were issued over a longer period of time, and that he lost track of how much he prescribed. On the other hand, given his previous record, it isn't very likely that the OPM will buy that." He paused, gauging the effect of his words on Cuddy. She was chewing her lower lip, deep in thought. "Then there is the fact that he prescribed drugs to someone who was technically no patient of ours. As an employee of PPTH, he is not allowed to take on private patients outside the hospital."

"Yes, yes, I know. But need anyone know about that?"

"We're obliged to notify the board. In view of the fact that the prescribed medication was abused and in the light of Dr. House's earlier breaches of conduct, I fear that the board will vote to dismiss him, regardless of the outcome of the medical malpractice investigation," Brandon clarified. He scanned Cuddy's face and clearly didn't like what he saw. He pursed his lips in disapproval and added, "Dr. Douglas, from what I gather after viewing the attached prescriptions, Dr. House deserves what he's getting. He was undoubtedly enabling that girl's drug habit _and_ her method of financing it." His look said clearly what _he_ thought of that, and Cuddy felt herself bristle with indignation.

Nevertheless, she couldn't afford to let Brandon know that she actually had an inkling of what this might be about, so she just said, "I'll talk to Dr. House about this. Perhaps he can explain it all." Brandon's mien stated unequivocally that he didn't think there could be _any_ satisfactory explanation for what was lying on Cuddy's desk, but it wasn't his job to say so, so he left, oozing disapproval from every pore.

Cuddy went in search of House and started in his office. That was deserted, but in the team-room next door his team was doing a differential under Foreman's aegis. Cuddy frowned, – since when did House delegate differentials? – knocked and entered in one smooth movement. Foreman paused politely.

"Where's House?" Cuddy asked briskly.

"Not here?" Chase replied, his intonation almost making a question out of the bare statement.

"I can see that," Cuddy said impatiently. "_Where_ is he?"

"On vacation. He took a two-week break," the young woman who had taken Thirteen's place bleated. "He told me to clear it with the personnel department, saying that he'd cleared it with _you_."

"He lied," Cuddy stated as she mustered the young woman, Dr. Ewell. She was doormat enough to do House's paperwork and stupid enough to believe something he told her without double-checking it. What on earth could have possessed House to hire such a brainless bimbo? Had he done it just to spite her?

When Dr. Hadley's health had forced her to retire, Cuddy had insisted that he hire another woman.

"And if one or more of the male applicants are better?" House had enquired.

"Then you take a woman," Cuddy had insisted remorselessly.

"So if Foreman goes, I have to hire a black, if Taub goes, a Jew, and so on?" House had probed with deceptive gentleness.

Cuddy had felt a queer tingling up her spine – this was the game she knew and loved, and he was finally playing it again. Her eyes had gleamed and she had leaned forward in anticipation, getting ready to push a button here and pull a switch there. "Exactly. Alternately you can hire a black Jewish disabled woman _now_; then you can hire anyone you like if you fire any of the other three. I don't insist on Australians," Cuddy had explained sweetly. "Oh, I forgot, we've _got_ a cripple in the department, so disabilities are covered."

He had responded with an answering gleam, eyes narrowing and shifting to the cleavage that she had purposely exposed with her move forward. But then, suddenly, his face had shut down again and his features had stilled. He had stared blankly at her for a second, and then he had turned around and had limped off grumpily. At the end of the day he had informed her per email that he'd take Dr. Martha Ewell, pending her approval. A few years earlier, she had thought reminiscently, there would have been a major battle laced with inappropriate comments from his side, egged on by provocative behaviour on her part. He'd never have let her have the last word, much less hired a woman from the first short-list. It was boring, it was depressing, and it made her feel ... unwanted. Especially when the woman in question had what House and Wilson would describe as an 'impressive rack'.

She backtracked to Wilson's office, waiting for his reply after knocking at the door before she entered. Wilson was doing paperwork at his desk.

"James, where's House?"

"I – don't know," Wilson said, his face stating pretty much the opposite.

"James, it's urgent." She tossed the letter from the OPM onto his desk. "And he's disappeared. For two weeks."

Wilson picked up and read it, a frown slowly spreading over his features. When he came to the end of the letter, he massaged the back of his neck with his left hand. Then he looked up at Cuddy apologetically, saying, "I think you need to talk to _him_ about this."

"How am I supposed to talk to him about it when he isn't here?" Cuddy practically yelled at him.

"Can't it wait until he comes back? Those OPM investigations can take months!"

Cuddy took a deep breath and willed herself to sit down quietly without picking up the nearest object and throwing it at Wilson. "James," she said carefully, as though talking to a recalcitrant child, "I'm not so worried about the OPM in New York at the moment, although I am also worried about that. _I_ am worried about the fact that _we_, as in 'Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital', have a board meeting this week, before House's return. I am worried, because the legal department will put the matter on the agenda, and I am worried, because I haven't the slightest clue what this means, and that will make it just a tad difficult for me to come up with a plausible reason why the board should not fire him instantly. So, please, tell me how I can get hold of House, because he is not taking his cell phone."

"He isn't?" Wilson looked nonplussed, picked up his phone and speed-dialled. "You're right," he concluded after a moment. "I thought maybe he just wasn't taking _your_ calls, but his cell phone is switched off."

"Where is he? With Stacy?"

"What? No!" Wilson replied with force. "No, he's gone home."

"Home? I thought his mother died a year ago. Why is he going there now?"

"He hadn't sold the house, because he couldn't be bothered before. He's gone down there now to see what he wants to keep and to sell off the rest. Closure. Though I guess he saw _this_," Wilson indicated the letter, "coming and decided to check out his financial status and his assets, including his mother's house."

Cuddy's heart sank. If House was counting his pennies to see whether he could weather losing his license, then there probably _was_ no cogent explanation that she could present to the board.

Wilson was looking down at his fountain pen, twisting the cap on and off rhythmically. After the fourth time, he looked at Cuddy and said, "Tell me what you know."

Cuddy had no choice but to humour him, since she needed his help. "Lucas let slip that House was there when Stacy got the state attorney to drop all charges against Lucas. I assumed that it was a coincidence – that House had gone up to see Stacy in New York and had tagged along to gloat over Lucas."

Wilson frowned at that and reprimanded Cuddy, "You're unjust to him, Lisa. He isn't like that anymore; well, _hardly_ ever." He interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on them, staring into space. Whatever he saw there helped him to come to a decision. "Tell me what you assume and I'll confirm correct assumptions," he offered.

Cuddy thought aloud for Wilson's benefit. "I can think of two, no, three possible explanations for this. One, the one our legal department favours, is that House, for reasons best known to himself, has decided to commit professional suicide by supporting a minor's drug habit. Now House may be a complete jerk, but he's neither a criminal nor negligent, so I consider that one unlikely." Wilson smiled over his fingertips.

"The second explanation is as follows: Stacy cottoned onto the fact that the drugs for which Lucas got arrested came from Wicklow's surgery (she practically told me as much on the phone), so she put pressure on Wicklow to clear Lucas. That, however, would implicate both Wicklow for having lax security measures in his surgery and his daughter for stealing the drugs. Wicklow turned to House and asked him to write out the prescriptions for the drugs found at the party, so that his daughter wouldn't be convicted for illegal possession. This, however, would only make sense if House was a very, _very_ good friend of Wicklow's, because given the quantity of amphetamines prescribed and the fact that the police were already involved, an investigation was inevitable. But he _isn't_ a good friend of Wicklow's. Lucas said they practically fought at the attorney's office.

"That brings us to explanation number three, which I consider the most likely one. Since House _wrote_ those prescriptions for Wicklow and since he didn't do it as a gesture of friendship, then he must have had some other compelling reason. And the only reason I can think of is that Wicklow forced or blackmailed him into doing so. Now what could Wicklow have on House? My supposition is that House ... started taking opiates as painkillers again. He knows Wicklow from med school, so he goes to him for prescriptions, and Wicklow, being a somewhat shady character, obliges." Cuddy conveniently forgot that she spent years supporting House's drug habits in one way or another. "So when Megan Wicklow gets arrested, Wicklow phones House and tells him that unless he writes the prescriptions, Wicklow will stop his drug supplies and expose him to his boss. House is angry, which explains the near fight in the attorney's office, but he has no choice, so he writes the prescriptions.

"Now, if we are to save his ass, we have to get him to Mayfield to detox as fast as possible, get Nolan to give him a positive prognosis before the OPM hearing, and stall at the board meeting. Which in turn means that you have to get him back here _stat_!"

"Oh, god, no!" Wilson groaned. "It's all much, much simpler. ... Lucas got arrested the night you left, right? The next evening, just when House and I were settling down to watch the hockey game, Stacy phoned and told me the basic facts of what had happened: that Lucas had crashed a party and been caught in bed with his client's daughter, and was now being framed for dealing with those drugs that his client's daughter had brought to the party. House heard my end of the conversation, so there was no way I could hide the business from him. He was pretty moody the rest of the evening; at first, when I wondered what we could do to help Lucas, he said he couldn't care less if Lucas spent the rest of his life in jail and that you'd be better off without him. Then he had one of his epiphanies and said that he'd figured out a way to get Lucas off the hook. He phoned Stacy to find out Lucas's client's name and address. He nearly changed his mind when he heard that it was Wicklow, but finally he phoned him, too.

"He went to see Wicklow that very night to inform him that Stacy was onto him and would do her best to prove that the amphetamines came from his surgery. Then he offered to write the prescriptions. In return Wicklow was to withdraw all charges under Section 130. They took the next few days to get everything organized, and then they went to the state attorney and got Lucas cleared. Lucas showed few signs of remorse and very little insight into the perils of his situation. He seemed to _expect_ House to step in, if not for his sake, then for yours. Considering what is in store for House because of this and how repugnant it was to him to have to bargain with Wicklow, that was just a tad ungrateful," Wilson said with artful understatement.

"In fact," Wilson added, "going to Wicklow and bargaining with him was probably the hardest part for House, harder than the prospect of disciplinary action against him. He and Wicklow have a history. Do you remember that fund-raiser here in the hospital where you and I first met? I came with House and Stacy. House got bored, but Stacy wanted to stay, so House and I went to a bar and got wasted. He told me about Wicklow then. He isn't usually talkative about his past and I have no idea what set him off that time, but the story was ... interesting. It seems Wicklow was the reason he got expelled from medical school in Michigan."

"I thought he got expelled for cheating," Cuddy interjected. Somehow his cheating from her in the endocrinology examination and what he had said a few years ago at the conference dance about being expelled the next day had combined in her mind to form an entity. Had Wicklow seen him cheat during the exam and then ratted on him? But Wicklow hadn't been in endocrinology as far as Cuddy could remember.

"No, he didn't, although that played a role, too. He'd been caught cheating once, but he'd been allowed to stay on condition that he behaved in an exemplary manner ever after. He'd already had one run-in with Wicklow: he was a lot more trusting in those days, and it seems Wicklow copied copiously from one of House's term papers and then handed it in as his own, but because House had no proof, he'd had to let it go. Then House started something with a girl, something that he considered a serious relationship. Wicklow saw House at a party with the girl, and the next day House ran into him. Wicklow made some snide comment about the girl, that she was an easy lay and that he'd had her too – that sort of stuff – upon which House went ballistic. He'd made some major indents into Wicklow's physiognomy, when the dean happened to pass by. And that was the end of House's career at the University of Michigan."

There was a contemplative silence. Cuddy was in a brown study, reliving her Michigan past and fitting what Wilson had told her into the empty spaces of the puzzle that was her relationship with House, while Wilson returned to fiddling with the cap of his pen. Finally Wilson broke the silence. "So, he wasn't too happy at having to deal with Wicklow again. But he did it." Hanging in the air as audibly as though Wilson had said them, were two words: _For you_.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

* * *

"Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to _my daughter_. Now what have you to say?"  
"Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me." [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 56]

_**

* * *

Princeton, one week later**_

Rachel was in bed, Cuddy's mother was comfortably ensconced on the living-room sofa with the television remote control within reach, and Cuddy had taken her laptop into the kitchen so as to be able to work undisturbed by television sounds. She should have been reviewing her budget proposal for the upcoming board meeting, but her mind kept turning to the one matter that had been put on the agenda at short notice: _Personnel matters – Dr. Gregory House_. Cuddy could, of course, veto any vote to dismiss House – since he had tenure, a unanimous vote was needed. But unlike the Vogler affair, if she voted against an otherwise unanimous board vote, her position would become untenable. When Vogler had pulled his little stunt, it had been clear that it had been a choice between House and one heck of a lot of money. The board had voted with Vogler, but its members had essentially been ashamed of themselves. This time, unless she could think of something really smart, the board would be morally in the right to fire House, and voting in his favour would only result in her authority being completely undermined. The board would withdraw its confidence in her and probably refuse to pass her budget, effectively forcing her to resign. Alternately, Wilson could refuse to vote against House, but there was a tacit understanding that hospital staff serving on the board did not vote on issues that they might be biased on.

She still wasn't sure why House had done it. Even assuming that he'd done it out of a misplaced concept of friendship, what exactly did he stand to gain by rescuing her idiot of a husband (ex-husband as of the day before yesterday) from a longish prison sentence? Justice? This was _House_, not Cameron; he believed in the truth, not in altruistic sacrifice, and his actions hadn't brought the truth any closer to the surface than it had been previously. Quite the opposite, in fact, for he had obscured it even further – all chances of the truth coming to light in court proceedings were effectively nullified by House's taking the rap for various Wicklow misdeeds. Her eternal gratitude? Yes, she was grateful that he'd got Lucas out of a mess, but the trouble he was in had to be weighed in the balance. The longer she thought about it, the less likely it appeared that Lucas would have been sentenced to a major prison sentence. It was a first offense and the evidence was controversial, to say the least. House's medical career, on the other hand, now had a 99% chance of running aground, and she was the only one who might be able to salvage something from the wreck. And it wasn't as though his actions had saved her marriage. That ship had definitely run onto the rocks.

Cuddy massaged her temples as she stared at the screen. She had a vague idea how she could manipulate the board into keeping him on, but it was risky insofar as it could well rebound on her. She'd lose a lot of credibility for the future, and she wasn't sure whether House was worth the bother of saving on a short-term basis – the OPM investigation was outside her sphere of influence and she had little hope of his surviving that – not when he hadn't even consulted her wishes before committing professional hara-kiri. It was quite possible that he was sitting in the empty basement of his dead mother's house overdosing on vicodin and whiskey at this very moment, while she was racking her brain trying to save his ass.

The door-bell rang, startling Cuddy out of her stupor.

"I'll get it," she called to her mother, and made for the door. Outside the door stood Stacy, still dressed in her work two-piece and her attaché case under her arm, so she must have driven down from New York straight after work. Cuddy had written her a short email a few days ago asking her for information regarding Megan Wicklow's prescriptions, but Stacy had replied that since she was representing Lucas in that case and the Douglases were as good as divorced, she was not at liberty to divulge any details to Cuddy. Cuddy had not been surprised, but she had hoped that Stacy would be a little less bureaucratic considering that House was involved. Seeing her on her doorstep now, she hoped that Stacy might have had a change of heart. She smiled in welcome and ushered Stacy in, leading the way to the kitchen. She closed the kitchen door behind them, motioned to Stacy to sit down, and closed the lid of her laptop.

"Thanks for coming, Stacy. Can I offer you anything?"

"Coffee, please," Stacy replied a little stiffly.

Cuddy got two mugs of coffee, placed milk and sugar on the table, and sat down opposite Stacy. There was a charged silence, Cuddy mustering Stacy expectantly while Stacy added sugar to her coffee and stirred it moodily. Cuddy waited patiently: she knew that Stacy was a stickler for rules, therefore breaking them, even for House's sake, didn't come easily to her.

Finally Stacy said, "This isn't what you think – what you might be hoping for. I can't say more than I did in my email, and even if I could, there's nothing I can say that would help Greg."

Cuddy leaned back nestling her mug, her features hardening. "How could you let him do that? I know Lucas and I are your clients and you have certain obligations towards us, but surely those don't include encouraging others to obfuscate a clear case of medical negligence. You must have realized that Lucas's chances of warding off the narcotics charges were way better than House's chances of getting out of this without losing his license! There was no way the police were going to be taken in by those rotten prescriptions; they must have realized that the Wicklows were lying through their teeth ..."

"Lisa, I had NO idea what Greg intended to do. He didn't tell me. He made the deal with the Wicklows and informed me afterwards: he'd issue the prescriptions and in return, Megan would admit that the amphetamines were hers and the parents would withdraw charges under Section 130.25. There was nothing I could do!" She leaned forward, forcing Cuddy's gaze to lock with her eyes. "Do you seriously believe that, knowing that he was about to ruin his career, I would have done nothing to stop him?" Cuddy was silent. "In fact, until I got your email I thought _you_ had instigated this."

Cuddy gasped at this unjust accusation. In all House's years at PPTH she had done everything within her power (and quite a few things that actually lay outside her official range of power) to protect him personally and as a doctor. She had never expected thanks, for that wasn't House's style, she had never expected gratitude, for she knew House too well to expect any sort of acknowledgment for what others did for him, and she had never expected recompense, because House didn't live in a 'you scratch my back, I scratch your back' world. If he did something for someone, it was because he felt the need to, not because he felt a sense of obligation. How anyone who knew House could believe that it lay within her power to make him do something that clearly subverted his notions of right and wrong, beat her.

"Lisa, can I ask you something?" Stacy asked, and continued without waiting for a reply, "What is going on between Greg and you?"

"I'm sorry?" Cuddy asked, drawing herself up slightly and raising one brow to indicate that she felt the question was not quite pertinent.

Stacy was no one's fool and not to be subdued by Cuddy going into administrator mode. "You know quite well what I'm talking about. There must be something going on between you and Greg, else he wouldn't wreck his future in this stupid and senseless way."

"I don't see what concern it is of yours."

Stacy exhaled sharply. "No concern of mine? You know our history, you know better than anyone else that what I did to him will tie me to him in guilt for the rest of my life, and whatever I may have with Mark, it could never compare to what Greg and I had together. And you tell me that it's not my business when he throws away what is dearest to him?"

"You can make _his_ life your concern, but _my_ life most certainly isn't. I am not answerable to you for what I do."

"Look, Greg is a vulnerable person. He's capable of enormous sacrifices for the people he loves, or thinks he loves. Look at what he did for Wilson: agreeing to brain surgery at the risk of his own life on the slim chance of saving Wilson's girlfriend. He just loses all sense of proportion when he's emotionally involved – that's why he tries to avoid it as much as possible. I know he's susceptible to you and that he feels physically attracted to you, but if you've been using that to ..."

Cuddy felt her temper flaring and fought to keep it under control as she interrupted Stacy, "Thank _you_! But I don't quite see where this is going. What's done is done, and cannot be undone, and unless you can contribute anything that will clear him before the board or the Office of Professional Misconduct, then I see little sense in this conversation."

Stacy changed tack, going from the friend-to-friend confidential tone into cross-examining mode. "Are you having an affair with Greg, Lisa?"

Cuddy was silent, refusing to reply by word or by mien. Stacy pushed back her chair and stood up, gaining an advantage over Cuddy by looking down on her. This did not intimidate Cuddy at all; she was used to being considerably smaller than most of her employees and she had been a top administrator for long enough to see through such ploys. Stacy leaned on the table with both hands and stared Cuddy straight in the eyes as she said, "Well then, let me tell you that Greg and I are in a relationship again. I thought I had made that clear to you a few years ago, but you might have forgotten it. I'd like _you_ to keep out of it!"

Cuddy smiled tightly as she answered, "Then you have nothing to fear, do you, for both of us know that House is strictly monogamous in his relationship, unlike ... other people. He's not the guy to risk a relationship that he's actually managed to commit himself to for a one-night stand or a petty little affair. And the idea that he'd try to keep two relationships going at the same time is absolutely ludicrous!"

Stacy didn't try to contradict that. House's morals were an interesting subject. Most people, watching him deal with his patients and listening to him harassing female members of the staff, assumed that he was entirely without a moral standard, but much the opposite was true. True, he didn't acknowledge any moral instance other than himself, but the standards he set himself were high indeed. Cuddy remembered a conversation she had had with Wilson during the time Stacy had been at the hospital with Mark. Cuddy had expressed surprise and chagrin that House did not balk at wooing Stacy out of her marriage. Having been, according to Stacy and Wilson, the epitome of fidelity during his own relationship with Stacy, she had assumed that he considered relationships, especially marriages sacrosanct. Wilson had disillusioned her on that topic. "House is utterly dedicated to whatever commitments _he_ makes, whether it's a relationship or a patient. He'll move heaven and earth to get donor organs for his patients, to the disadvantage of more deserving patients and regardless of the worthiness of his own patients. If he and I were competing for a donor organ, he'd use every trick to get it and expect me to do the same for my patient. He'd never as much as budge an inch for anyone else's patient, though. Similarly, he's absolutely dedicated to whatever relationship he enters into, but he won't be burdened with protecting other people's relationships for them. If Stacy doesn't care enough about her marriage to protect it, then that's her problem, not his. If the situation was reversed and House were in a relationship with another woman, then Stacy wouldn't stand a chance. He's never made a secret of the fact that he thinks I'm an idiot to get married, and he's never liked my wives, but despite that he despises me for my infidelities, because _he_ considers such commitments binding."

Stacy paced up and down the kitchen, her left hand fingering the ring on her right. Finally she turned, facing Cuddy and leaning her back against the kitchen counter. Whatever she was about to say was not going to pass her lips easily. "It is a complicated relationship," she started. "It's more a sort of 'understanding'. We love each other, but Mark won't give me a divorce."

"Remember that I'm clued up on divorce law now. I know that you can get a divorce without his consent," Cuddy murmured.

"Yes, indeed, but he would sue for physical custody for the boys if I insist on a divorce, and his chances of winning aren't slim. He's a good father and his job as a high school guidance councillor makes him eminently suitable for physical custody, whereas I have a job with irregular working hours and ... and a boyfriend who is a former drug addict. Whom do you think the judge will choose? So Greg and I have agreed to wait until the boys are bigger and can choose for themselves. But the wait is hard on Greg – he's never been a patient person."

"Very touching," Cuddy could not stop herself from saying, "but what has this to do with me? Your deals with House are no concern of mine. If he chooses to stick to them, fine, if not ...," she shrugged expressively.

"Doesn't our friendship mean anything to you? Shouldn't it stop you from taking my boyfriend away from me?" Stacy pleaded forcefully.

"Your _husband_ does not mean enough to you to stop you from pursuing another man. How should our 'friendship' stop me from doing something that might promote my own happiness? Besides, this is a purely hypothetical discussion. Let's not fool ourselves: whatever shady deals you and I might close tonight won't interest House in the slightest. He'll do exactly as he likes, and if that happens to be something with me, then that's too bad for you."

"Lisa, have you thought this over carefully? If you start something with Greg, who is on the verge of getting fired for professional misconduct, you become practically untenable as Dean of Medicine. A dean whose department for diagnostics is in a shambles and whose boyfriend has been barred from practising medicine! You might retain your position, but you will lose authority with the board and with your employees. Even if you survive in the short run, in the long run you will be forced to resign."

"I am grateful for your concern, but I am quite happy to make my own decisions. So far, I've always been able to get House's ass out of the tight corners he wedges it into, and I don't doubt I'll be able to do so again tomorrow." This was said with a good deal more confidence than Cuddy actually felt. "I've put my career at risk a number of times for House, because he's worth it – as a doctor and as a person. If my career hits the rocks this time – fine, so be it."

"I see that no reasonable discussion is possible with you in your present mood," Stacy stated. She got up, picked up her case and moved towards the door. Cuddy led her out of the kitchen and opened the front door without any further comment. All that was necessary had been said.

* * *

"We come to the next item on the agenda: Personnel matters. The legal department requests that we deal with the enquiry against Dr. Gregory House," Cuddy said in an unemotional voice without looking up from her papers. "You all have a copy of the letter the Office of Professional Misconduct sent us?" She looked around at the eleven other board members, and all of them nodded. She gave them a few minutes to read the letter, before she continued, "Do you have any questions regarding the contents of the letter?" She patiently answered all questions until it penetrated to the darkest corner of the board that Gregory House MD had prescribed drugs in exorbitant quantities to a minor who was not a PPTH patient.

"Our legal department recommends that we vote to rescind Dr. House's tenure and that he be dismissed. A unanimous vote is required to lift his tenure." She paused for effect. "Before we vote on the matter I would like to inform you on Dr. House's professional development these past five years. Until five years ago Dr. House was a frequent item on our agenda – patient lawsuits, damaged equipment, unprofessional behaviour – you name it, he did it. Five years ago he started treatment for his addiction to pain killers. I would like the board to note that he started the treatment of his own volition and that he has not had a relapse since then. His hospital record has improved vastly: patient complaints are down by 50%, lawsuits are down by 45% and staff complaints are down by 30% as compared to before his treatment." Cuddy beamed a graph representing the development onto the wall. "Dr. House is trying very hard to become a better doctor and a better person. I believe we should support him in this effort."

One of the board members raised his hand, "Dr. Doug ... sorry, Dr. Cuddy. These numbers are very impressive, but firstly, they can't disguise the fact that Dr. House is still the physician causing the greatest legal expenses at this hospital, and that by a wide margin. Secondly, and more importantly, what Dr. House is accused of goes above and beyond boorish behaviour. He stands accused of criminal activities! No matter how exemplary his behaviour at work, we _must_ draw the line at members of our staff supplying members of the public, and minors at that, with drugs for recreational use. How can we know that he hasn't prescribed drugs to other minors?" Other board members nodded seriously, and Cuddy saw, with a sinking heart, that this would be a lost hand unless she played her joker. She stood up.

"If that is how you see it, I have no choice but to be open with you and disclose the background of the case 'Megan Wicklow' to you. I rely on your discretion not to make what I tell you known outside this room.

"Megan Wicklow's father, Dr. George Wicklow, is an old friend of mine. We have known each other since medical school, where he mentored one of my projects." Cuddy tossed her project write-up with Wicklow's name on the cover page casually on the table. "We have remained good friends and I am very attached to him and to his wonderful children. As you also know, my private life has not run smoothly lately and I am recently divorced. During those upheavals Dr. Wicklow was a ... a great source of comfort to me." Here Cuddy looked down, as though somewhat ashamed to disclose the extent of that 'comfort'. She actually found herself blushing at the thought that the board would get the hint and believe that she was having an affair with Wicklow. She looked up again and scanned the round to see how her act was being taken. At the moment looks of puzzlement prevailed, coupled with a certain amount of impatience. Wilson, however, was looking as though he'd swallowed something large and furry.

"About six weeks ago I received a telephone call from Dr. Wicklow. _His_ marriage has also disintegrated and his oldest child, Megan, has been somewhat confused and destabilized by the divorce proceedings. Apparently she sought distraction in the wrong circles, leading to the drugs possession charges with which you were acquainted today. Where those drugs came from and whether they really were in Megan's possession is not a point we need debate here.

"As those among you with children can imagine, Dr. Wicklow was distraught and intent on protecting his child at all costs. He asked me whether I would be prepared to write out prescriptions for the drugs whose possession Megan was accused of, to prevent charges being pressed against her. Being very fond of both of them, I agreed to do so. I admit that I did not think much about the consequences that this would have for me _and_ for the hospital. But the matter never got that far, for Dr. House found out what I intended to do.

"As most of you know, I have invested a lot of time and energy to ensure Dr. House's ongoing employment at this hospital. Many of you have wondered why I bothered, especially since the object of my efforts seemed not to appreciate them. However, it seems that Dr. House _did_ notice that I was saving his, er, backside all these years, and he was not without gratitude. He saw the implications of my foolish pledge more clearly than I did, so he approached Dr. Wicklow without my knowledge. He impressed upon him what the consequences for me would be, if I did as he requested, namely that I would be in grave danger of losing my position as dean at this hospital. Dr. House then suggested that he write the prescriptions instead, arguing that not being in as prominent a position as I was, the legal repercussions would be easier for him to bear. Dr. Wicklow, having the matter put to him in that way, was only too glad to get me out of the line of fire and assented at once. What Dr. House, er, _forgot_ to mention was that, given his previous record, he stood no chance of surviving any kind of legal backlash.

"As you see, Dr. House did not act in criminal intent at all. He didn't even act to save a young girl from her own stupidity. He acted solely to save me from the consequences of my own blue-eyed foolishness as a belated thank-you for all the times that I have saved him from the consequences of _his_ foolishness." Cuddy drew a deep breath. "I owe him a personal debt of gratitude, but I would also like to point out to the board that Dr. House's actions, regardless of whether this was actually one of his motives or not, have also contributed to maintaining the hospital's reputation. Were I, as Dean of Medicine, subjected to an OPM investigation, the hospital's reputation would suffer immensely. I therefore ask you to reconsider whether dismissing Dr. House is an appropriate reaction to the situation.

"I will leave the room while you debate the issue. Since I am primarily concerned I will abstain from voting."

She headed towards the door. Wilson stood up and cleared his throat, "Also being biased, I'll just join Dr. Cuddy, shall I?" He followed Cuddy out, shutting the door carefully behind them and then leaning against it with arms crossed.

"Wow," he said in tones of deepest admiration, "and wow! One for the story and one for the performance. You should have got an Oscar for that one. However, I do wish you'd tell me the fairy tales you intend to present to the board well in advance, so that I'm not in danger of gaping like a cod-fish when I should know what you're talking about. I can't stay in there, because if anyone asks me any questions about the crap you served them, I'll ruin it all."

Cuddy looked around for something to fiddle around with, but only found a floral arrangement on a side-table. She proceeded to worry the flowers, plucking out petals and rolling them between her fingers. Finally she said moodily, "I might have saved him from the board, but I can't pull this stunt in front of the OPM. Personnel matters are subject to secrecy, but OPM hearings aren't. The Wicklows would find out about it and then ... God, I can't believe I actually did that. The board must think I'm completely out of my mind or some sort of sex-crazed hormone-driven bimbo who goes around wrecking other people's marriages. Let's hope they will still pass my budget."

"Let's hope they don't vote to dismiss you!"

"On what grounds? _I'm_ not the one being subjected to an OPM investigation nor is _my_ name on the prescriptions. There is nothing they can do to me on the basis of what I told them in confidence, except to say 'naughty, naughty'!" She twisted a flower tightly around a finger. "Stacy turned up last night. She told me to keep my fingers off House."

"Hmmm."

Cuddy studied Wilson's mien out of the corner of her eye. "I thought that was over the top, considering she's ditched him twice already."

"She didn't. The last time, when Stacy came to Princeton with Mark, House opted out."

"_What_?"

"You didn't know?"

"No. I assumed ... Stacy never talked to me about it." The flower was in shreds. "Why? First he pursues her like a love-sick teenager, and then he drops her?"

Wilson nodded and said, "He didn't tell me anything at all, and he gave Stacy some bullshit to the effect that in the long run the relationship wouldn't work because he'd stop caring sooner or later. _I_ figure it was a bit of a Catch-22 situation. If Stacy was prepared to leave Mark - who was being difficult, though not even close to what House was like after his infarction, but who definitely wanted her to stay - to be with House, then how could House trust her not to leave _him_ at some later stage? Essentially, it meant that she was only trustworthy enough to be with House, if she refused to leave Mark. With House, it's always about trust." He started picking up the flower shreds and disposing of them neatly by stuffing them into the now empty vase. "So ... you're the girl House and Wicklow fought over in med school," he surmised.

Cuddy blushed. "I guess so. You know, he never got in touch again after ... that party. I thought ... oh, never mind what I thought. I only found out he got expelled after he came back from Mayfield. Anyway, it was over twenty years ago – it really doesn't matter anymore."

"And in twenty-odd years you never thought to ask?" Wilson shook his head. "You know, you two really should talk with each other every now and then."

The door to the conference room opened and the chairman waved them in again. After they were seated, he began, "Dr. Cuddy, after a controversial discussion the board decided not to put Dr. House's tenure up for vote, as a unanimous vote on that issue was not to be expected." Cuddy breathed a sigh of relief. The greatest danger had been averted.

The chairman continued, "We had two motions. The first motion suggested that Dr. House be suspended until the OPM investigation is concluded. This motion was quashed with a vote of 3 in favour to 6 against it with one abstention. The second motion requested that Dr. House be reprimanded for issuing prescriptions to non-patients and that this be duly noted in his personnel record. This motion passed with a vote of 9 to 1. The second motion reflects the board's desire to enable Dr. House to enter the OPM hearing without a handicap from our side. We can't ignore the fact that the prescriptions were issued in his name, but our vote should indicate quite clearly to anyone outside the hospital that we do not consider him culpable of a criminal act or of medical malpractice. I think that this is a ruling that Dr. House can't complain about.

"Nevertheless, I must express our displeasure at _your_ conduct, Dr. Cuddy. As Dean of Medicine, you are expected to behave with circumspection, always keeping in mind that your conduct, whether in public or in private, reflects upon the hospital as a whole. We normally do not scrutinize the private lives of our employees, but you have brought this upon yourself by not keeping your profession and your private life strictly apart. As a result, one of our doctors is the subject of an OPM investigation and our Department of Diagnostics is in danger. Dr. Cuddy, you have done the hospital a great disservice, and the board sincerely hopes that in future you will spare us the embarrassment and the unpleasantness that will doubtless accompany us the next few months. However, the many years of impeccable professional conduct that you have shown outweigh this one lapse of judgment by far, so we will leave it at that and continue with the next topic on our agenda. Ladies and gentlemen, the budget for the year 2016!"


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note**: Here comes the last chapter. It took longer than I thought it would and it was a lot more difficult than I'd bargained for. I thought, "Now I just have to tie up a few loose ends, and the rest will write itself." Well, it didn't. There were so many loose ends that they made a big, tangly knot, and the moral of the story is, "Tie up your loose ends as you create them, else they'll tie you up." This is roughly the fourth version of the final chapter and it's ended a lot fluffier than I would have liked. I'd have liked an open end, but my try at an open end read very badly indeed.

A big thank you to all faithful reviewers. I know you're all worried about hurting my tender feelings, but it would help me greatly if you could tell me what could have been better. If it helps you in any way, just tell me which chapter you liked particularly and which one didn't turn you on at all. If you know the reason and are prepared to divulge it to me, so much the better.

**Chapter ****18**

* * *

"I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family, I should not have merely my own gratitude to express." [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 58]

_

* * *

Another week later_

House was supposed to be back on Monday, but he wasn't in his office, nor was he in Wilson's. Cuddy found House up on the roof, leaning on the balustrade and plucking his lower lip thoughtfully. He didn't turn round as she approached, though he must have heard her heels on the concrete. She moved up beside him and leaned on the balustrade in turn, looking at the landscape instead of him to give him the space he needed. Silence stretched out between them.

Finally he said, "Wilson said you stopped the board from firing me."

"Uh-uh."

"Neat story. Of course no one who knows Wicklow could seriously believe that you'd rather screw him than me. You are a mean liar, Lisa Cuddy." By House-ian standards that qualified as an excessive expression of gratitude.

"It won't, however, save you from the Office of Professional Malpractice," Cuddy noted seriously, getting to one of the major points on her agenda.

"I know." He shut down again.

She drew the letter from the OPM from its envelope and unfolded it. "Have you thought about what you …"

House brushed what she was about to say away with a curt movement of his hand. "If that's all, then perhaps we could end this conversation. It's going down a dead end." He looked pointedly away.

Cuddy rolled the letter into a cylinder while she tried to think of a strategy to make him deal with the present situation in a constructive manner. If he treated the OPM panel the way he tended to treat court hearings, she might as well close down his department straight away. As though he sensed Cuddy's reluctance to let the matter drop, House pushed himself into a standing position and turned to go. Realizing that this might be her last chance in a while to talk to him alone in a private place, she decided to put the talk about his professional future or rather, his lack of it, on hold and to deal with the other pressing issue. She put her hand on his arm and took a deep breath. "I wanted to thank you for what you did for our family, especially for Rachel and for … me. I know Lucas doesn't fully appreciate what you've done for him, but thank you for him, too."

He stared down at her hand. "I didn't do it for him and you know it."

She blushed slightly as she removed her hand, and said with an embarrassed laugh, "What made you think _I'd_ want it? The last you'd heard from me on the subject of Lucas before you got him out of that mess was that he could rot in prison for all I cared."

"I knew you'd get over that phase. You always do. You get mad, you yell, and you threaten with dire retribution, but once you've calmed down you're only too eager to re-establish the _status quo ante_."

"You have a fine opinion of me!"

"Besides, you wanted him out of jail for Rachel's sake," House analyzed shrewdly.

She didn't quite buy it. "You're trying to make me believe that you bust your medical career so my daughter can grow up with a father in her life? Give me a break! Besides, your actions made Lucas believe that there was something going on between us. As a result he didn't want the marriage to continue any more than I did. So much for Rachel growing up with a father!" He stared out into the distance, plucking his lip again, and something in his lack of reaction to her last statement made her pause. She rounded on him, arms akimbo. "Hang on, _that's_ why you did that. You knew that if Lucas showed signs of repentance and a willingness to give our marriage another try, I'd probably 'calm down' and take him back, if only because of Rachel. Even if he got a prison sentence. _Especially_ if he got a prison sentence, because I'd feel that he was getting a hard enough deal as it was without having to face a divorce. So you interfered to make sure he didn't get the prison sentence, and you made him believe that I had something going on with you, so he'd feel as cheated as I did. You bastard, how could you!"

He rounded on her, flaring up too, but with a hint of hurt. "I didn't say or do _anything_ to make him believe that you and I had 'something' going on. If he drew any conclusions from my deal with the Wicklows, then that was entirely his own doing. He knows me – he knows I'm manipulative and usually have some form of hidden agenda - and he knows you. He should have mistrusted me and trusted you. He didn't. He probably didn't want to. He was quite happy to accept my help because he _wanted_ to believe that you had something with me. It made him feel better about his behaviour towards you."

"What are you trying to prove: that there's no such thing as unconditional trust? Was it fun wrecking my marriage?"

He deflated as quickly as he'd blown up and turned back to face the horizon. "I'm not trying to prove _anything_."

She deflated almost as quickly, because, knowing House as well as she did, she could hear the unspoken words, 'There was nothing to wreck,' and the truth of that was undeniable. House was like Scrat, the squirrel in Ice Age, driving his acorn into a fault that already ran so deep and far that the resulting cataclysm could not realistically be attributed to his action alone. It would have occurred anyway, and that sooner rather than later. Had the foundations of her marriage been solid, nothing that House did would have doomed it to such quick and utter collapse.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'm looking for a scapegoat, anything that'll boost my ego and make me feel less of a complete failure as a wife and mother. You have saved Rachel from the shame of a father in prison or on probation, and I was way out of line to question or even to doubt your motives."

He gazed at her with eyes narrowed, a curious half-smile on his face as he said, "Oh, but you should. I figured that you can't marry me unless you're divorced from him!"

Cuddy was speechless for a moment. Was he jerking her around? Scanning his face for the smallest tell-tale sign that would give him away, she had a feeling of déjà-vu: he wore the expression – half calculating, half probing, testing her reaction – that she associated with the nightmarish '_I was wondering whether we should move in together.'_

"Was that a proposal?" she asked unbelievingly. How was she supposed to react to this? Was she supposed to take it seriously or was this the unlikely beginning of a round of carefree bickering? They hadn't bickered in years! She decided to leave it open, making her tone light and jocular. "Don't you think we should take it slowly, maybe date a while, move in together ...?"

"I'm no good at dates. And the last time I suggested moving in together, I got fired!" He was definitely messing around now, the old gleam back in his eyes. She was glad to see it back, and gladder that he could joke about the events that had led to Mayfield, so she answered in kind.

"Well, that needn't worry you this time around– your medical career is drawing to a close anyway," she said brightly, tapping the rolled-up letter from the OPM on his arm.

"Nice," he muttered, "but that's another reason why I can't afford to wait." As she looked at him questioningly, he elucidated, "I lose my pay check and, more importantly, that comfy little PPTH health care insurance for hospital employees, when I lose my license. Very nasty, given the state of my health. I believe, however, that spouses of PPTH employees are entitled to health care insurance."

"Oh," Cuddy said, her jocund mood evaporating. His tone might be bantering, but his problem was a serious one. "Oh my goodness, you'll _have_ to marry me. What if Lucas and I had not split up?"

"Then Wilson and I could elope to Massachusetts or Vermont and get married there. Come to think of it, he's the better choice. He's more of a girl than you are. He takes so long in the bathroom that I'm sure he shaves his legs."

"Oh, do be serious, House," Cuddy said irritably.

House continued undeterred, "And he must be good in bed. Thousands of women can't err. There aren't that many men who can vouch for _you_."

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "I'll say _thank you_ on the slim chance that you meant it as a compliment to my sexual morals. Chances are that you'd have to be residents of wherever, Massachusetts or Vermont, to get married there, and that a gay marriage won't be recognized here for insurance claims purposes," she stated, hoping to stop his verbal diarrhoea until she had thought through the ramifications of his eventually losing his license. House's day-to-day finances would be a surmountable problem – she didn't doubt that Wilson would be prepared to support House financially if House had no income or assets. But House was a walking, talking health disaster. His leg needed constant medical attention and physiotherapy, he might well relapse into addiction, and there was a realistic possibility that his liver would fail in the not-so-far future. And that was without taking into account accidents and such random ailments as everyone was susceptible to. With no health care insurance, he'd land in the gutter, and neither Wilson nor she would be able to prevent it. "We have to be married for a minimum period of one year for you to qualify for the PPTH health care scheme as a spouse - I'd better start organizing the paperwork. Thank goodness the divorce was granted so quickly!" She meditated on the likelihood of House managing _not_ to cause himself any serious injury for a whole year, and decided that private coverage for that time would be necessary and a good investment. Perhaps she could get him to give up his motorcycle ...

"Don't let your brain go into overdrive," House mocked. "Did I mention that I have private health care insurance?" Cuddy gaped at him. "Stacy made me get it the second time I got fired. She said I'd never hold a job for long enough to qualify for any sort of health care scheme."

"Idiot!" she said affectionately after her gut reaction, a wish to jerk her knee into his right thigh, had ebbed off. So he'd been gulling her the whole time - deflecting from the apology and the thanks that she'd been inflicting on him - and had no intention of getting married. That was good, she supposed. After all, she was newly divorced after four years of marriage – there was really no need to enter that kind of a commitment again without some form of closure first. And then, House as a spouse! Seriously, what could she have been thinking of! Quite apart from all the other (very good) reasons that disqualified him as a partner, they hadn't really been friends these past five years. She shouldn't fool herself into believing that an act of kindness on his part and ten minutes' easy banter could bridge the chasm that yawned between them ever since his break-down and her marriage.

But his last remark reminded her of the thorn that had been digging into her flesh for a few days now. She said as casually as she could, "What about Stacy?"

"What _about_ Stacy?" House echoed, his eyes travelling slowly over her face. She hated it when he did that. He read her far too well for her comfort, and she'd rather not that he guessed what her feelings were.

"Oh, she mentioned that you were sort of together, so I suppose, if finances ever became an issue, she could, you know..." Cuddy trailed off, realizing that even someone less percipient than House probably wouldn't be fooled.

"'Sort of together'?" House repeated, his tone infused with irritation.

She was annoyed at herself for bringing the subject up. "This conversation would be more effective if you contributed something to it that might, at a stretch, be considered an original response, not just a citation of my words," she said waspishly.

"We're not having a conversation. You're throwing an assortment of meaningless words at me and expecting me to give meaningful responses. Stacy and I are not 'sort of together', whatever that may mean."

"Oh. Then why did she say so?" Cuddy asked petulantly.

"How do I know? What did she say?"

"She said that you...," Cuddy didn't want to use the word 'love', but how to avoid it? She took a breath and made a new attempt. "She said that you had an understanding: Mark won't give her a divorce, so she's waiting for the boys to grow up before she leaves him."

"Where do _I_ come into this?" he asked.

"Are you being wilfully obtuse?"

"Are you jealous?" he countered. He bent down to squint at her, invading her personal space. Then he drew himself up and crowed, "You are, admit it, admit it! You are jealous!" like an oversized Peter Pan.

"I am _not_!"

"Oh, go along, admit it, Cuddy! You can't fool me! Admit it!" he chanted with unremitting vigour.

"If I admit it, then you have to tell me what's going on between you and Stacy," Cuddy bargained, figuring that she couldn't persuade him that she wasn't jealous, and anyway, did she care whether he thought she was jealous or not? At the worst, he'd tell Wilson that she had the hots for him, but he'd been doing that for years, so it wouldn't exactly be news.

"Okay," he acceded, to her surprise. "You go first."

She hesitated for a moment, tapping the balustrade with her fingers, then she said very quickly, "I-admit-that-I'm-jealous. Your go!"

"Aw, no," he groaned. "That was not a proper admission. Nice and slow, so that I can relish every word."

"I. Am. Jealous. Satisfied?"

"Okay," he said reluctantly. He shifted around uncomfortably while she gazed at him expectantly, grumbling, "I think I got the worst of the deal." She gave him a smug smile. Making him feel uncomfortable made her humiliation worthwhile. "Stacy was at your wedding and so, unfortunately, was I, being a good boy and showing I bore you no hard feelings and doing all the things well-adapted humans do on such occasions. So we talked, we danced, and ..." He was clearly well out of his comfort zone with this.

"And one thing led to another," Cuddy completed for him, echoing words from long ago.

He smiled down at her sadly, reliving the memory she had just conjured. Then he snapped back to the present. "But then it didn't.... I was looking for distraction." He didn't have to explain why. "I thought it might work, because it had worked before and I had changed, I hoped, for the better, but ... it wouldn't have worked. By the time I realized that, Stacy had asked Mark for a divorce, but Mark, being Mark and not the kind of guy to let her go without a fight, threatened to keep the kids." House smiled grimly. "That worked fine for both of us – he got to keep Stacy and I got out of what would have become a pretty sticky situation. I didn't feel too good about causing stress in her marriage, so I didn't bother to tell her that I would have ended the relationship anyway, but there is no 'understanding' that I ever consented to."

He looked at his watch and straightened up. "Duty calleth," he said with a grimace. She shot him a surprised glance as she fell into step with him – he was hardly the person to allow a timepiece to dictate his movements – but she could understand that he'd use any excuse to escape comments about what he'd just told her. So she didn't allude to it as they made their slow, laboured way down the flight of stairs to the elevator.

Somehow Cuddy felt deflated, let down. After her talk with Wilson the week before and Stacy's surprise visit she had felt fairly confident that House was still interested in her, and given the fact that he'd moved very quickly and resolutely to put her into his debt over the Wicklow affair, she had assumed that he would not hesitate to declare that interest. However, nothing much had occurred on the roof that could qualify as a move on her; she hadn't really expected a romantic declaration of love, but even the most flattering interpretation of their sojourn on the roof allowed for little more than the restoration of their pre-Mayfield mode of interaction. It was possible that his motives for saving Lucas were those that she'd proposed to the board: a repayment for all the bullshit she'd had to put up with and for all the times she had saved him from self-destruction.

Then again, there had been some interesting aspects to their interaction. Recalling their words, Cuddy's memory hit on a few snags on the otherwise smooth surface of indifference that he'd presented to her. He had denied _actively_ influencing Lucas's suspicions that he and she were having an affair, but he had not explicitly denied that fuelling suspicions that Lucas might have been nurturing already had been one of his main motivators in getting Lucas cleared of all charges. Nor had he claimed any other motive than that one: there had been no mention of gratitude towards her, and while he had acknowledged her desire to have Rachel grow up with a paternal figure in her life, he hadn't shown any signs that such a consideration would influence _him_. By no stretch of imagination could Cuddy envisage House giving up his profession so that a six-year-old whom he hardly knew could grow up with a father.

If breaking up her marriage was a major motive for his interference (and by now she was pretty sure that it was), then his 'proposal' might have been serious. Well, 'serious' was probably too strong a word. He hadn't really expected her to swoon in his arms gushing a breathless, 'Yes, Greg, I do so want to marry you!' at him and he'd deflected very quickly, but he might have been testing her reaction to the idea. What might his analysis be? _Still too mad at me to admit that she'd love to marry me, but give her a good rationalization such as providing me with health care insurance and she'll jump at the chance_. It was interesting that he hadn't jibed at her overt eagerness to save him from the financial repercussions that threatened him. Normally such excessive concern on her part, coupled with her undue interest in all that pertained to Stacy would have been her downfall in any dealings with House. The old House would happily have used all this as grist for his mill and she'd never have heard the last of it. The post-Mayfield House had shown an unwonted reserve so far; even her obvious interest in his relationship with Stacy had not elicited as much as one inappropriate response. He had noted that she was jealous, but he hadn't really cashed in on it. Quite the opposite, really. Their little bargain, which he need not have consented to (and would _never_ have consented to in the old days), had allowed her to find out about the status of the Stacy-Greg-liaison while he had got nothing of worth out of her. The only explanation (that made sense to Cuddy) for such unprecedented openness was that he _wanted_ her to know that there was nothing going on. The only reason he could have for wanting her to know that nothing was going on was so she'd know that he was free. And the only reason he'd want her to know that he was free was ...

As they got into the elevator Cuddy absentmindedly pushed the button to the first floor. House stepped in beside her and leaned on his cane, facing the doors.

"Where are you going?" she asked, her hand hovering over the buttons.

"Same floor," he answered. "Clinic duty."

Her head jerked around and she frowned. "Are you kidding?"

He sighed. "Nope. Wilson, who is being a real Jewish mom, is convinced that I have to behave like a model boy scout for the next months, if I'm to survive the OPM hearing. And believe it or not, I don't want to lose my license. So, it's clinic duty when I don't have a case, reading to kids on the paediatric ward, being nice to the nurses ... no, let's cut that, that would be opening up one front too many in the battle ahead of me. You can give them a pay raise before the hearing, so that they testify in my favour."

"Huh! You be nice to my staff, House, and I'll consider perjuring myself for your sake again." But she was pleased that he was considering his future and that he (or Wilson, it really didn't matter who) had some sort of strategy.

"You'd perjure yourself for me anyway. Offer me a better incentive!"

"What were you thinking of?" She regretted the question the moment she asked it – this was _begging_ for an inappropriate response.

"How about what we talked about earlier?"

She looked at him in puzzlement. They had talked about a number of things, but she couldn't remember talking about any extra perks for him. He elaborated, "Getting married?"

"I thought ... you said you don't _have_ to get married."

"Didn't say I don't _want_ to." He was staring at the elevator doors, looking for the world like a schoolboy caught passing a billet-doux to the belle of the class. Was he blushing?

"Why would you want to?" she asked curiously. She knew that he'd taken exactly one week to move in with Stacy after their first date, showing that the depth and permanence of a commitment were no issue for him once he _was_ committed, but suggesting marriage when they didn't even have anything going as yet was radical, even by his standards.

He glanced at the ceiling of the elevator for inspiration, but then he looked her straight in the eye. "We didn't settle things between us before I went to Mayfield, and when I came back, you were taken. I don't want that happening again," he stated simply.

She was so moved that she felt tears sting the back of her eyes. There was a lot of subtext in there: their lack of communication, her desertion, but above all his fear that he might lose his mind again. And if he did, then he wanted to make sure there'd be someone to come back to. It was too much to deal with in the confines of an elevator that had about ten seconds to go before it reached the next floor. "I'll think about it," she murmured, trying to get her features under control.

He must have sensed that he had waded in too deep and too fast, for his tone retracted the conversation back to a shallower level. "Woman, after twenty-five years, what is there to think about?" he groaned.

"I said I'll _think_ about it," she repeated, enunciating every word, finally able to give him a slightly wobbly saucy smile.

"Well, don't think for too long," he said with an intimidating mock frown, bending down to her, "or else I ..."

"Or else what, Gregory House?" She took a small step towards him in the confined space, arms akimbo, staring right back and daring him to continue his futile threat. They were staring each other down, moving closer to each other unconsciously, heart rates accelerating, when the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, revealing Wilson standing outside.

"Oh," he said lamely. They stepped apart and he entered hesitatingly. "I'm ... just going down to the clinic," he said, as though his presence in the elevator needed justification.

"He thinks I need babysitting so that I behave," House explained dourly. "Wilson and I are cooking on Friday," he added inconsequentially.

"Are we?" Wilson asked in surprise. House planted his cane dangerously close to Wilson's foot. "Oh, yes, we are," Wilson hurried to confirm.

"You want to come," House asked Cuddy carelessly, "around eight?"

"Just a casual get-together?" Cuddy enquired.

"Yeah, but you can wear something nice. Give the twins an airing. How about that sky-blue dressed-to-kill thing you used to wear on dates?" House raised his eyebrows meaningfully.

Cuddy pursed her lips in pretended deliberation. "I don't waste the best items in my wardrobe on home cooking. So if this isn't a date, then the best you can hope for is jeans and a top," she pronounced. Her spirits picked up: Friday evening, even if not a date, would doubtless offer opportunities for ... something or other. The elevator doors chose that moment to open on the first floor, giving her the opportunity for a grand exit with swaying hips and nary a backward glance as she moved towards her office.

House's voice stopped her. "Hey, Cuddy! How _long_ are you going to think about it?"

She threw a casual glance over her shoulder. She had no doubt that he was _not_ referring to Friday evening. "I'll let you know when I've decided," she murmured and continued to her office, conscious of his eyes on her. At her office door, instinct made her turn around again. He was leaning against the wall next to the lift, his eyes trained on a part of her body that was below her waist (so much for Mayfield altering him!) and not looking in the least as though he doubted the outcome of her deliberations.

"You can wipe that arrogant smirk right off your face," she called. "I said I'd _think_ about it!"

"Your _lips_ say you'll think about it, but your _ass_ says, 'Oh my god, _yes_!'"

She couldn't help laughing at that, and she decided it wasn't worth the bother of denying, since he was absolutely right. House, she thought with affectionate annoyance, was _always_ right. She entered her office with a very foolish grin plastered all over her face, to the surprise (and delight) of a waiting donor, who thought he was the cause of her obvious happiness.

"What was that about?" Wilson enquired.

"Oh, nothing," House shrugged casually, turning towards the clinic. "I asked Cuddy to marry me."

"You're kidding. You must be. You _are_ kidding, aren't you? ... House, you can't be serious, can you? You're not serious! ... Oh my god, you are! ... I don't believe this! House, you're crazy. House!" Wilson trailed behind House, looking apoplectic.

"What?"

"You didn't really, did you?"

"What kind of a friend are you to doubt my word? This is a really great start to my career as a married man!"

"You haven't had a decent conversation with her in five years, and then you ask her to marry you out of the blue?"

"'Marry me.' Two words. What do you need a conversation for?"

"Oh, god! But...you did tell her that you love her - oh okay, _like_ her? Put your tongue down her throat?"

"Shit! I _knew_ I'd forgotten something! Next time, I'll take you along so you can give me my cues."

Wilson breathed in deeply. "Look, let's go and get a ring, and then you ask her out on a date like a normal person, and _perhaps_ you'll stand a chance of tidying up this mess you've made."

House sighed. "Wilson, we're talking about _Cuddy_. She's fine with the way I do things. Did she look unhappy to you? Wasn't that ass swaying just the right way? Besides, she more or less said she was coming on Friday, didn't she? She wouldn't do that if she was mad at me."

"So what do you get out of that, man? Home cooking with a chaperon!"

"If I go on a date with her, I'll mess it up, she'll get mad at me, and then I don't get to make out with her. Like this, I get to make out with her on the sofa without the hassle of a date that I'd mess up anyway."

"What, with me sitting beside you? You're a pervert!"

"It's too bad that one of your patients will take a turn for the worse during dessert, so that you'll have to spend the night at his bed holding his hand," House said meaningfully, pushing open the clinic door.

"Well, what about the ring?" Wilson tried again.

House looked at the ground and didn't reply.

"Come along, House. This isn't the time to scrimp and save." There was still no answer. "Alright, I'll pay for it, if it must be, but for goodness sake..."

"I've _got_ a ring," House said flatly. He picked up a patient file from the clinic desk, and then he finally looked at Wilson. "I bought one. Five years ago." With that he stumped off into the examination room.

* * *

"This is a wretched beginning indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and I am sure nobody else will believe me if you do not. Yes, indeed, I am in earnest. […] He still loves me and we are engaged." [Pride and Prejudice Ch. 59]

* * *

THE END


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